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Atlas / NTSB / WPR24LA272

NTSB CAROL · Event

Event WPR24LA272

2024-08-07 Hawthorne, California, United States Airport · KHHR Minor 1 aircraft Status: Completed

Registry · N552GC

FAA Aircraft Registry record.

Make / Model

GLASAIR GS-2 SPORTSMAN

Year of manufacture

2008 · 16 years old at event

Engine

LYCOMING IO-360-A1A (200 hp)

Seats / Engines

2 seats · 1 engine

Last airworthiness date

20080626

ADS-B equipped

Yes — Mode-S A70772

Registrant of record

ARNOLD LOREN WESLEY

Source: FAA Aircraft Registry (releasable master file).

Aircraft involved

Probable cause & findings

The flight crew’s failure to maintain airspeed during a short field landing and the instructor’s delayed remediation, which resulted in a hard landing.

Factual narrative

The pilot and owner of the tailwheel equipped airplane reported that he was performing a short field approach with a flight instructor. During the landing, the instructor took control of the aircraft and pulled the control stick back, to increase the airplane’s pitch, and did not increase engine power. The airspeed decayed and the airplane experienced an aerodynamic stall and landed hard. The flight instructor reported that the sport pilot/owner was at the controls during the short field approach, and he had been talking him through the approach. On final approach, the instructor told the pilot to lower the nose and add power. Subsequently, the flight instructor applied full engine power, however, the airplane landed hard, which resulted in substantial damage to the fuselage. The instructor and the pilot both reported that there were no preaccident mechanical malfunctions or failures 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).

  • Aircraft-Aircraft oper/perf/capability-Performance/control parameters-Airspeed-Not attained/maintained
  • Personnel issues-Action/decision-Action-Delayed action-Instructor/check pilot

Verbatim from NTSB's published report. Source file NTSB_2024_WPR24LA272.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 (stall). 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 ↗