CHI96FA116 · Cirrus VK30
Cirrus VK30 · Accident: loss of control in flight while maneuvering
From Duluth International Airport (DLH) to an unrecorded destination
Event
- NTSB case
- CHI96FA116
- 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
Cirrus VK30
- Aircraft type
- Cirrus VK30
- 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
- N44VK
- Operator
- Unknown
- Onboard fatalities
- Unknown
- Route
- From Duluth International Airport (DLH)To 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
- Loss of control in flight
- 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
- Aircraft performance › Inadequate
- Kit manufacturer › Acft/equip, inadequate handling/perf capabilities
Approximate · Coordinates as recorded by the NTSB; no uncertainty radius is established.
NTSB narrative
The pilot of N44VK was attempting to verify stall characteristics at the aft center of gravity limit. The pilot of a chase plane and an on board video confirmed that N44VK departed controlled flight. Recovery from the uncontrolled flight was not made prior to impact with the terrain. The airplane came to rest in an upright position with a descent angle measured at 77 degrees. All airframe components recovered were found within 30 feet of the main wreckage. The airplane was not equipped with any antispin or deep stall recovery devices. The investigation revealed flight control continuity. Indications of engine power at impact were evident throughout the engine, propeller, and drive shaft.
Probable cause
the inadequate handling/performance design capabilities of the airplane which resulted in the inability to recover from an aft center of gravity spin. Factors were the lack of any antispin or deep stall recovery devices, and the aft center of gravity.
Verbatim NTSB analysis and probable cause from the NTSB dataset
Sources
NTSB record CHI96FA116
- Event ID
- 20001208X05368
- Case number
- CHI96FA116
- 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: c7f71a5cd7a0585f47e2dece1391e4994cd74d38d458bf48e2840ae31c698654; retrieved 2026-09-20T23:24:08.173Z.