CHI97LA201 · Weber RV-4
Weber RV-4 · Accident: airframe, component or system failure on approach
From HXA · Celina, TX to an unrecorded destination
Event
- NTSB case
- CHI97LA201
- 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
Weber RV-4
- Aircraft type
- Weber RV-4
- 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
- N1142J
- Operator
- Unknown
- Onboard fatalities
- Unknown
- Route
- From HXA · Celina, TXTo 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 final
- 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
- Airframe, component or system failure
- 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
- Substantial
Cause areas
- Pilot in command › In-flight planning/decision, inadequate
- Pilot in command › Stall, encountered
Approximate · Coordinates as recorded by the NTSB; no uncertainty radius is established.
NTSB narrative
On the third final approach to land the airplane on a hilly turf runway, the pilot discovered that the throttle cable had jammed at a reduced power setting. The jammed throttle prevented him from either reducing power to land or from applying full power to go around. The pilot successfully flew past power lines and poles before initiating a turn to avoid timber on a ridge, but was unable to clear rising terrain due to inadequate power for the climb. He said that he stalled the wings prior to impact with terrain. The pilot said things happened so fast on final that he did not have time to think about shutting off the engine. The airplane impacted in a steep hay meadow approximately 50 feet above the highest point on the runway. Investigators found the throttle cable jammed due to broken strands of cable inside the sheath. The throttle cable, which had been salvaged from another airplane, showed extensive chafing at several places on the sheath from the previous installation.
Probable cause
the pilot's inadequate in-flight planning/decision and encounter with a stall. Related factors were the chafed throttle cable, which became jammed; and failure of the pilot to perform an engine shut down in order to land on the runway.
Verbatim NTSB analysis and probable cause from the NTSB dataset
Sources
NTSB record CHI97LA201
- Event ID
- 20001208X08318
- Case number
- CHI97LA201
- 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: 1e9359f428ad778c7d3f1546107c48ed4dcdb2617ee427bf471dc71bbc4e34aa; retrieved 2026-09-21T11:59:46.987Z.