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CHI98LA146 · Dangremond CHALLENGER II CHALLENGER

11 May 1998 · Wayland, MI, United States

Dangremond CHALLENGER II CHALLENGER · Accident: airframe, component or system failure during initial climb

From Calkins Field (41C) to an unrecorded destination

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Event

NTSB case
CHI98LA146
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

Dangremond CHALLENGER II CHALLENGER

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
N199DD
Operator
Unknown
Onboard fatalities
Unknown
Route
From Calkins Field (41C)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
Initial climb
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
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

  • Miscellaneous, bolt/nut/fastener/clamp/spring › Misrouted
  • Pilot in command › Maintenance, installation, improper
  • Wing, bracing strut › Separation

Approximate · Coordinates as recorded by the NTSB; no uncertainty radius is established.

NTSB narrative

The pilot said that this was the airplane's first flight. During the initial climb, the right wing strut separated from the fuselage. The pilot said that the airplane was approximately 300 feet above ground level when it entered a right spin. The airplane impacted the ground in an upright position. Examination of the airplane's right wing forward strut showed that the attachment bolt was improperly installed through the fiberglass fairing surrounding the strut, but not through the strut itself.

Probable cause

the pilot's improper installation of the right wing forward strut attachment bolt.

Verbatim NTSB analysis and probable cause from the NTSB dataset

Sources

NTSB record CHI98LA146
Event ID
20001211X10006
Case number
CHI98LA146
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 1998-05-12.
  • API snapshot SHA-256: 475da8dd82ba6f31dfeb3d8737f91da46b5a394f7dd59c51771cafc34da945cc; retrieved 2026-09-22T17:48:04.056Z.