NTSB CAROL · Event
Event FTW96LA213
Registry · N1690B
FAA Aircraft Registry record.
Make / Model
LUSCOMBE 11A
Year of manufacture
1949 · 47 years old at event
Engine
CONT MOTOR E185 SERIES (205 hp)
Seats / Engines
4 seats · 1 engine
Last airworthiness date
19551026
ADS-B equipped
Yes — Mode-S A11577
Registrant of record
MELCHER TIMOTHY P
Source: FAA Aircraft Registry (releasable master file).
Aircraft involved
Probable cause & findings
the pilot's failure to maintain directional control during landing. A factor was a gusting cross-wind.
Factual narrative
On May 14, 1996, at 1530 mountain daylight time, a Luscombe 11A, N1690B, struck a fence post after departing the side of the runway at Calhan, Colorado, during landing roll. The airline transport pilot and passenger were not injured, and the aircraft sustained substantial damage. The flight was operating under Title 14 CFR Part 91 as a positioning flight and no flight plan was filed. Visual meteorological conditions prevailed. The flight originated from Centennial Airport, Englewood, Colorado, at 1500. According to the pilot, he was landing on runway 35 with the wind from 270 degrees magnetic at 15 knots with gusts to 25 knots. He said that after touch down, the aircraft began to weather vane and departed the left side of the runway. He attempted to go around but the aircraft was in deep grass and would not accelerate. The aircraft struck a fence post causing damage to the left flap, left stabilizer, left elevator, left main trunion and empennage. After the encounter with the fence, the aircraft again entered the runway area and was taxied to a hangar by the pilot. During landing roll, after completion of a positioning flight, the aircraft departed the side of the runway and struck a fence post. Winds at the time were a cross-wind of 15 knots with gusts to 25. Source: NTSB Aviation Accident Database (Pre-2008 Archive) Retrieved: 2026-02-12
Verbatim from NTSB's published report. Source file
NTSB_1996_FTW96LA213.txt.
Findings + structured fields enriched from FAA avall.mdb.
Full investigation docket on
data.ntsb.gov ↗.
Beyond the agency record
Search this event elsewhere.
Pre-filled searches into the sources where news + community discussion of aviation events lives. External sources are reported, not agency. Treat them as signal that something happened, not as fact about what happened.
Entity-clustered aviation events in the press — last 24 hr + 30-day archive.
Official agency record + docket.
Investigative docket: factual reports, photos, transcripts.
Long-running aviation incident database (Flight Safety Foundation).
Community NTSB synthesis blog — often has photos and witness reports.
Gold-standard aviation incident blog.
Aviation industry news search.
GA pilot forum — informed but rumor-prone.
GA pilot subreddit search.
Tail-number page — flight history (free tier limited).
AOPA Air Safety Institute search.
Mainstream press coverage. Recent events only.
Privacy-preserving news search.
External links open in a new tab. We don't ingest their content; we deep-link search queries.
Related research
What the literature says.
Academic papers and agency reports matching this event's aircraft type. Sourced from NASA NTRS, NTSB Safety Studies, FAA CAMI, AOPA Air Safety Institute, Embry-Riddle Scholarly Commons, arXiv, and the Semantic Scholar academic graph.
Browse the full corpus — academia portal ↗