WPR24FA290 · Aero Commander 200D
Aero Commander 200D · Accident: collision during takeoff/landing
From an unrecorded airport to Redding Municipal Airport (RDD)
Event
- NTSB case
- WPR24FA290
- Event typeAccident: someone killed or seriously injured, or the aircraft substantially damaged (NTSB definition). Incident: an occurrence that affected or could have affected safety, short of that. Glossary
- Accident
- InvestigationHow far the investigation had got when the record was published: preliminary, ongoing, final or completed. Unknown where the source does not say. Glossary
- Completed
- API-reported fatalities
- 1 · all aircraft and ground
- Ground fatalities
- 0
- OperationWhat kind of flying it was, grouped by the rules it flew under: airline (US Part 121), air taxi and commuter (Part 135), general aviation (Part 91 and similar), military or government. Glossary
- General aviation
- WeatherVisual meteorological conditions (VMC): good enough to fly by looking outside. Instrument conditions (IMC): cloud or low visibility, flying by instruments. Glossary
- Visual Meteorological Cond
Aero Commander 200D
- Aircraft type
- Aero Commander 200
- Category
- Airplane
- RegistrationThe aircraft's tail number, such as N12345 or G-ABCD. Registrations are reissued, so the same one years apart can be a different aircraft. Glossary
- N2912T
- Operator
- Unknown
- Onboard fatalities
- Unknown
- Route
- From not recordedTo Redding Municipal Airport (RDD), Redding, CA
- Aircraft age
- About 58 years (built 1966)
- Flight rulesThe regulations the flight operated under: in the US, Part 91 (general aviation), Part 121 (airlines), Part 135 (air taxi and commuter) and others; for flights abroad, the NTSB's coarser commercial or non-commercial code. Glossary
- Part 91: General Aviation
- Phase of flightThe stage of the flight when things started to go wrong: standing, taxi, takeoff, initial climb, en route, maneuvering, approach or landing. Glossary
- Takeoff
- Defining eventThe single coded event the NTSB judges best describes what happened (records from 2008 on). Older records name the first occurrence in the sequence instead. Glossary
- Collision during takeoff/landing
- DamageDestroyed: beyond practical repair. Substantial: damage that affects the structure, performance or handling and normally needs major repair. Minor: less than that. Glossary
- Substantial
Cause areas
- Aircraft › Aircraft oper/perf/capability
- Environmental issues › Conditions/weather/phenomena
- Personnel issues › Action/decision
Approximate · Coordinates as recorded by the NTSB; no uncertainty radius is established.
NTSB narrative
Multiple witnesses described the airplane crossing over into the runway safety area shortly after the pilot’s takeoff roll on a personal flight in his single-engine airplane. The airplane crossed over a taxiway and into another runway safety area before crossing the ramp in a nose-high pitch attitude. The airplane was unable to outclimb the nearby hangars as it approached them, subsequently impacting the end hangar. A postaccident fire ensued. About 15 minutes before the pilot departed, the wind conditions for the departure runway were reported as variable between 190° to 270° with gusts to 14 knots, with the prevailing wind from 240° at 7 knots. About 5 minutes after the accident, the reported wind conditions were from 220° at 9 knots. Additionally, other pilots at the airport at the time of the accident reported gusting and variable wind conditions.
A postaccident examination of the airframe and engine revealed no evidence of mechanical malfunctions or failures that would have precluded normal operation. Given the left-turning tendency due to engine torque and P-factor, combined with the left crosswind and gusts during the time of the accident, exacerbated the runway excursion. The pilot was likely unable to maintain directional control during takeoff due to these combined factors, resulting in the airplane departing the runway and entering the runway safety area. The takeoff was not aborted for unknown reasons. In the setting of a post-crash fire and smoke inhalation, the pilot’s elevated carboxyhemoglobin level does not constitute evidence that the pilot was impaired by carbon monoxide during the flight. The pilot’s cardiovascular disease, including severe coronary artery disease, placed him at substantially increased risk of an impairing or incapacitating cardiovascular event, such as chest pain, arrhythmia, or heart attack. There is no autopsy evidence that such an event occurred; however, such an event does not leave reliable autopsy evidence if it occurs just before death. Notably, even severe coronary artery disease may not cause major symptoms.
Probable cause
The pilot’s failure to abort takeoff or compensate for gusty crosswind conditions during takeoff, which resulted in a loss of control and subsequent runway excursion.
Verbatim NTSB analysis and probable cause from the NTSB dataset
Sources
NTSB record WPR24FA290
- Event ID
- 20240901195033
- Case number
- WPR24FA290
- Dataset
- full-current
- Source SHA-256
- 5cf380f0061817c0331a6b2d8cc7e0ee3a79bea469a1001dc5c10e56f35f5ab3
Source notes (4)
- Unreviewed is an editorial label, not an investigation status. API-sourced is not report-checked or human-reviewed. Explicit event totals are used without summing aircraft injury tables; onboard allocation is withheld. Unknown values remain unknown. The operation category is mapped from the NTSB-reported FAR part and has not been reviewed.
- Filled from the NTSB case API where the bulk record had no value: investigation status, cause areas. Values present in the bulk record are kept.
- The date is the local date, which is the same as the UTC date the NTSB stores.
- API snapshot SHA-256: 8435f4f06caae474b1db4a72550b41911c965b23a10f795251788a0b691eae94; retrieved 2026-09-15T08:57:17.490Z.