FTW97LA178 · Rans S-12
Rans S-12 · Accident: loss of control in flight on approach
From Walker Family Farm Airport (OK14) to an unrecorded destination
Event
- NTSB case
- FTW97LA178
- 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
- 0 · 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
Rans S-12
- Aircraft type
- Rans S-12
- 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
- UNREG
- Operator
- Unknown
- Onboard fatalities
- Unknown
- Route
- From Walker Family Farm Airport (OK14), OKTo 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
- Approach · VFR pattern downwind
- 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
- Also codedOther events the NTSB coded in the sequence, such as a wire strike after a loss of power. Flight Findings uses them for its kinds of event. Glossary
- Stall
- 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 › Judgment, improper
- Pilot in command › Supervision, inadequate
Approximate · Coordinates as recorded by the NTSB; no uncertainty radius is established.
NTSB narrative
The pilot reported to the police that the passenger was operating the airplane when it, 'lost airspeed and began falling.' The pilot took control of the aircraft from the passenger and attempted to recover by lowering the nose to regain airspeed. During recovery, the airplane struck the ground. According to a witness, the airplane performed a touch and go. While turning downwind at approximately 100 feet, the aircraft 'apparently stalled.' He further stated that, 'the aircraft rolled to wings level and the nose was in an almost level attitude, approximately 20 degrees nose low at about 50 feet, when a second stall occurred.' According to an FAA inspector, the pilot believed that the airplane was in the ultralight category, therefore, did not need to be registered. However, according to FAR Part 103, the airplane was not eligible for an ultralight classification, and conditions had not been met for an exemption to Part 103 (for instructional purposes); the pilot-in-command was a student pilot and did not possess a medical certificate. Also, the passenger did not have an FAA pilot or medical certificate.
Probable cause
the pilot-in-command's improper judgment in allowing the passenger to control the airplane, and the pilot-in-command's inadequate supervision. Factors relating to the accident were: the passenger's failure to maintain minimum required airspeed, which resulted in an inadvertent stall; the passenger's lack of total experience; and the pilot-in-command's lack of total experience.
Verbatim NTSB analysis and probable cause from the NTSB dataset
Sources
NTSB record FTW97LA178
- Event ID
- 20001208X07718
- Case number
- FTW97LA178
- 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: local date, investigation status. Values present in the bulk record are kept.
- The date is the local date; the NTSB stores the UTC date 1997-04-23.
- API snapshot SHA-256: 0807a59e5f1475b7d07c3ffb3df08ded3de8b8dc936ba30be837befe0eebe400; retrieved 2026-09-21T12:09:27.334Z.