Skip to content

Atlas / NTSB / GAA19CA090

NTSB CAROL · Event

Event GAA19CA090

2018-12-08 Hesperia, California, United States Airport · L26 Minor 1 aircraft Status: Completed

Aircraft involved

Probable cause & findings

The pilot's improper landing flare, which resulted in hard, bounced landing, runway excursion, and impact with a hangar.

Factual narrative

The pilot reported that he planned to land close to the numbers, but about 15 feet above the ground, the airplane descended unexpectedly. He added power and pitched the nose down, but the nose wheel touched down hard. The airplane began to porpoise, so he increased the throttle to full, but the airplane veered left, exited the runway, and impacted an empty hangar. The airplane sustained substantial damage to the right wing. The pilot reported that there were no preaccident mechanical failures or malfunctions with the airplane that would have precluded normal operation. The pilot reported that he planned to land close to the numbers, but when the airplane was about 15 ft above ground level, it descended unexpectedly. He added power and pitched the airplane nose down, and the nosewheel touched down hard. The airplane began to porpoise, so he increased the throttle to full, but the airplane veered left, exited the runway, and impacted an empty hangar. The airplane sustained substantial damage to the right wing. The pilot reported that there were no preaccident mechanical failures or malfunctions with the airplane that would have precluded normal operation. 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).

  • C Aircraft-Aircraft oper/perf/capability-Performance/control parameters-Landing flare-Not attained/maintained - C
  • C Personnel issues-Task performance-Use of equip/info-Aircraft control-Pilot - C
  • C Environmental issues-Physical environment-Object/animal/substance-Airport structure-Effect on operation - C

Verbatim from NTSB's published report. Source file NTSB_2018_GAA19CA090.txt. Findings + structured fields enriched from FAA avall.mdb. Full investigation docket on data.ntsb.gov ↗.

Related research

What the literature says.

Academic papers and agency reports matching this event's aircraft type or causal vocabulary (runway excursion). 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 ↗