NTSB CAROL · Event
Event ERA21LA385
Registry · N68TW
FAA Aircraft Registry record.
Make / Model
DOAN VERNON D W10-WITTMAN TAILWIND
Seats / Engines
2 seats · 1 engine
ADS-B equipped
Yes — Mode-S A9029C
Registrant of record
WAGNER MERLE F
Source: FAA Aircraft Registry (releasable master file).
Aircraft involved
Probable cause & findings
The failure of the nose landing gear retention bolt during taxi which resulted in a loss of control and subsequent impact with the taxiway.
Factual narrative
The pilot reported that after landing, he applied the brakes and felt a “violent shimmy.” He released the brakes and the nose landing gear leg rotated left and aft which resulted in the right wing impacting the runway surface. A post-accident examination revealed that the nose landing gear retention bolt had sheared and the airplane had sustained substantial damage to the right wing. The pilot stated that he was the second owner and noticed that the original builder had not followed the design plans for the airplane, so the pilot modified the nose wheel attach plate to strengthen it but did not modify the gear assembly attach point which resulted in the failure. Source: NTSB Aviation Accident Database Retrieved: 2026-02-12
NTSB Findings
Hierarchical cause / factor breakdown from the FAA bulk avdata database. Each finding tagged C (Cause) or F (Factor).
- — Aircraft-Aircraft systems-Landing gear system-Nose/tail landing gear-Failure
- — Personnel issues-Task performance-Maintenance-Modification/alteration-Owner/builder
- — Aircraft-Aircraft oper/perf/capability-Performance/control parameters-Directional control-Attain/maintain not possible
Verbatim from NTSB's published report. Source file
NTSB_2021_ERA21LA385.txt.
Findings + structured fields enriched from FAA avall.mdb.
Full investigation docket on
data.ntsb.gov ↗.
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Related research
What the literature says.
Academic papers and agency reports matching this event's aircraft type or causal vocabulary (loss of control). Sourced from NASA NTRS, NTSB Safety Studies, FAA CAMI, AOPA Air Safety Institute, Embry-Riddle Scholarly Commons, arXiv, and the Semantic Scholar academic graph.
- Embry-Riddle Scholarly Commons 2025 · Journal article (JAAER)
A Scoping Review of Aviation Loss of Control Inflight Research
Loss of control – inflight (LOC-I) contributes to aircraft accidents at unacceptably high rates. Significant industry efforts and research have aimed to improve LOC-I prevention, detection, and recove…
- SKYbrary (Eurocontrol) 2024 · SKYbrary article
Loss of Control In-Flight (LOC-I) — SKYbrary Knowledge Base
SKYbrary comprehensive knowledge-base entry on Loss of Control In-Flight — definitions, contributing factors, accident case studies (Air France 447, Colgan 3407), and prevention strategies.
- NTSB Aircraft Accident Reports 2022 · Accident report
Loss of Control on Takeoff in Icing Conditions — Citation 560XL
Cessna Citation 560XL fatal takeoff icing accident, March 2018. Investigation of a Citation 560XL loss-of-control takeoff accident in icing conditions.
- Semantic Scholar 2021 · Article (Aviation)
ANALYSIS OF GENERAL AVIATION FIXED-WING AIRCRAFT ACCIDENTS INVOLVING INFLIGHT LOSS OF CONTROL USING A STATE-BASED APPROACH
Inflight loss of control (LOC-I) is a significant cause of General Aviation (GA) fixed-wing aircraft accidents. The United States National Transportation Safety Board’s database provides a rich source…
- NASA NTRS 2021 · Presentation
Use of Design of Experiments in Determining Neural Network Architectures for Loss of Control Detection
Abstract—We describe empirical methods for selecting a neural network architecture to implement belief state inference on generic commercial transport aircraft.
- NASA NTRS 2021 · Conference Paper
Use of Design of Experiments in Determining Neural Network Architectures for Loss of Control Detection
We describe empirical methods for selecting a neural network architecture to implement belief state inference on generic commercial transport aircraft.
Browse the full corpus — academia portal ↗