WPR24LA292 · Ronald J McLaughlin BEARHAWK PATROL
Ronald J McLaughlin BEARHAWK PATROL · Accident: loss of control on ground during landing
From Lemhi County Airport (SMN) to an unrecorded destination
Event
- NTSB case
- WPR24LA292
- 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
- Event fatalities
- Unknown
- Ground fatalities
- Unknown
- 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
Ronald J McLaughlin BEARHAWK PATROL
- Aircraft type
- Ronald J Mclaughlin BEARHAWK PATROL
- 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
- N924LB
- Operator
- Unknown
- Onboard fatalities
- Unknown
- Route
- From Lemhi County Airport (SMN), Salmon, IDTo not recorded
- Aircraft age
- About 8 years (built 2016)
- 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
- Landing
- 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
- Loss of control on ground
- 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
- Personnel issues › Task performance
Approximate · Coordinates from the NTSB case API, which marks them as estimated or does not say; no uncertainty radius is established.
NTSB narrative
The pilot of the tailwheel-equipped airplane was attempting to land at an airstrip within a canyon. The pilot overflew the runway twice; he first observed a right crosswind followed by a “limp” windsock during his second pass. The pilot then maneuvered through the canyon to land, encountering turbulence as he approached the runway. During the landing rollout, the airplane drifted to the left side of the runway despite the pilot’s rudder input. The right main landing gear hit a depression in the ground, the airplane then ground looped, and its left wingtip impacted terrain. The airplane sustained substantial damage to its left wing. After the pilot exited the airplane, he noted there to be a “strong, direct tailwind” present. The pilot reported there were no preaccident mechanical malfunctions or failures with the airplane that would have precluded normal operation.
Probable cause
The pilot’s failure to maintain directional control during landing, which resulted in a ground loop.
Verbatim NTSB analysis and probable cause from the NTSB dataset
Sources
NTSB record WPR24LA292
- Event ID
- 20240903195048
- Case number
- WPR24LA292
- 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, coordinates, 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: fa5f2dd4c73e071a1b24b23caedcf13c76e1ebd9c7506104308d3ceec56c6565; retrieved 2026-09-16T19:13:37.932Z.