FTW98FA127 · Ireneusz RANS S-12
Ireneusz RANS S-12 · Accident: in flight collision with terrain/water while maneuvering
From Rockwall Municipal Airport (F46) to an unrecorded destination
Event
- NTSB case
- FTW98FA127
- 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
Ireneusz RANS S-12
- Aircraft type
- Ireneusz 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
- N95EW
- Operator
- Unknown
- Onboard fatalities
- Unknown
- Route
- From Rockwall Municipal Airport (F46), 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
- 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
- Substantial
Cause areas
- Pilot in command › Altitude/clearance, not maintained
- Pilot in command › Low altitude flight/maneuver, performed
Approximate · Coordinates as recorded by the NTSB; no uncertainty radius is established.
NTSB narrative
The pilot flew the airplane at a low altitude above the water surface. Witnesses observed the airplane at 2 to 3 feet above the water on the south side of the Interstate 30 headed westbound. Subsequently, the airplane turned south, and the left wing and wheel went down into the water. The tail of the airplane came up into the air, and the airplane sank approximately 100 yards offshore. There were no discrepancies reported or found during the examination of the airplane. The water surface on the south side of the bridge was light chop with no white caps. Local weather facilities in the area reported 10 mile visibility, with overcast skies at 8,000 feet agl.
Probable cause
The pilot's failure to maintain clearance while performing low altitude flight over the water.
Verbatim NTSB analysis and probable cause from the NTSB dataset
Sources
NTSB record FTW98FA127
- Event ID
- 20001211X09538
- Case number
- FTW98FA127
- 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: 6e422f002566804ab8ed0fc4443377c2143374331bac83a7091cbef4b4f0d399; retrieved 2026-09-20T22:41:02.185Z.