SEA95LA224 · Macphee VANS RV-6
Macphee VANS RV-6 · Accident: in flight collision with terrain/water while maneuvering
From Rogue Valley International-Medford Airport (MFR) to an unrecorded destination
Event
- NTSB case
- SEA95LA224
- 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
- API-reported fatalities
- 1 · all aircraft and ground
- Ground fatalities
- 0
- 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
Macphee VANS RV-6
- Aircraft type
- Macphee VANS RV-6
- 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
- N726WM
- Operator
- Unknown
- Onboard fatalities
- Unknown
- Route
- From Rogue Valley International-Medford Airport (MFR), Medford, ORTo not recorded
- Aircraft age
- Not recorded
- 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
- Maneuvering
- First occurrenceThe 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
- In flight collision with terrain/water
- DamageDestroyed: beyond practical repair. Substantial: damage that affects the structure, performance or handling and normally needs major repair. Minor: less than that. Glossary
- Destroyed
Cause areas
- Pilot in command › Altitude/clearance, not maintained
Approximate · Coordinates as recorded by the NTSB; no uncertainty radius is established.
NTSB narrative
The pilot-in-command and his pilot-rated passenger departed on a pleasure flight to attend a barbecue at a private airstrip. Witnesses at the airstrip observed the airplane approach the runway from the south in a landing configuration with no problems noted. The airplane was then observed to fly over the entire length of the airstrip and beyond about 6 feet above the runway. The airplane then banked to the left and headed towards rapidly rising, mountainous terrain. The airplane then impacted trees. No abnormal engine noises were reported, and no preimpact mechanical malfunctions were found. The carburetor heat was found partially out, and the flaps were partially extended. Takeoffs to the north are prohibited at the airstrip due to terrain and obstructions. The density altitude was computed to be about 3,747 feet.
Probable cause
the pilot-in-command's failure to maintain altitude and/or clearance from surrounding terrain after a low pass. The mountainous terrain was a factor.
Verbatim NTSB analysis and probable cause from the NTSB dataset
Sources
NTSB record SEA95LA224
- Event ID
- 20001207X04611
- Case number
- SEA95LA224
- Dataset
- historical-pre2008
- Source SHA-256
- 89e2df6d848e7ab3b42e7d7c7a03ff403303057a26ca04c95b3ea67201c3ce74
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. 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: 7ab6e8a64cee13c0d4064669cd983c3be67a3dbead21b291bce15dbb9eba6af9; retrieved 2026-09-20T23:36:20.255Z.