LAX98FA171 · Vans Aircraft RV-8
Vans Aircraft RV-8 · Accident: abrupt maneuver en route
From Blythe, CA to an unrecorded destination
Event
- NTSB case
- LAX98FA171
- 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
- 2 · 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
Vans Aircraft RV-8
- Aircraft type
- Vans RV-8
- 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
- N58RV
- Operator
- Unknown
- Onboard fatalities
- Unknown
- Route
- From Blythe, CATo 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
- En route · cruise
- 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
- Abrupt maneuver
- 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
- Elevator › Improper use of
- Unknown › Design stress limits of aircraft, exceeded
- Wing, spar › Separation
Approximate · Coordinates as recorded by the NTSB; no uncertainty radius is established.
NTSB narrative
The aircraft, equipped with dual controls, departed for a demonstration flight with the pilot in the front seat and the pilot-rated passenger in the back. A demonstration flight includes only low-G maneuvers. The aircraft, designed for aerobatics, had, since its manufacture, performed aerobatic maneuvers on previous flights. The maximum allowable gross weight for aerobatics is 1,550 pounds. The aircraft weighed an estimated at 1,639 pounds at the time of the accident. An agricultural pilot reported seeing the aircraft in a shallow climb about 500 feet agl. An eyewitness, over a mile from the accident site, heard an engine surging and looked up. He saw a yellow aircraft flying straight and level, about 1,000 feet agl. As he watched, something fell from the aircraft, which was followed by a loud boom. The aircraft pitched up, nosed over, rolled, entering a spin that continued until impact. The outboard portion of the left wing was found 0.17 miles from the crash site. The main spar had evidence of a ductile fracture due to a positive overload. The spar material met design specifications for metal composition and hardness. There was no evidence of fatigue or corrosion. The outboard section of the left wing did not exhibit any evidence of aeroelastic divergence. A flutter test showed the aircraft design was free from flutter to speeds above its design envelope. Wing load testing showed the wing design was able to support a limit load, +6 g's. The wing also supported an ultimate load, +9 g's, for 3 seconds without failure. The Engine Management System nonvolatile memory readout provided data points equivalent to 191 mph in level flight. Maneuvering speed under the same conditions was 142 mph.
Probable cause
the intentional or unintentional sudden application of aft elevator control by an undetermined aircraft occupant that exceeded the design stress limits of the aircraft. The aircraft gross weight, which exceeded the maximum allowable for aerobatics, and airspeed, which exceeded the maximum maneuvering speed for the weight, were factors in this accident.
Verbatim NTSB analysis and probable cause from the NTSB dataset
Sources
NTSB record LAX98FA171
- Event ID
- 20001211X10121
- Case number
- LAX98FA171
- 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: 0332bf9da8c9409bb201da80940cb20ae26f0e6c3d85bf93d000191356ec1a36; retrieved 2026-09-20T22:34:34.023Z.