CHI93LA321 · R.D. Bell/Pietenpol AIRCAMPER
R.D. Bell/Pietenpol AIRCAMPER · Accident: hard landing
From Home Acres Sky Ranch Airport (Y91) to an unrecorded destination
Event
- NTSB case
- CHI93LA321
- 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
R.D. Bell/Pietenpol AIRCAMPER
- Aircraft type
- R D Bell/pietenpol AIRCAMPER
- 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
- N194BB
- Operator
- Robert D. Bell · private individual
- Onboard fatalities
- Unknown
- Route
- From Home Acres Sky Ranch Airport (Y91), Lake City, MITo 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
- Landing · flare/touchdown
- 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
- Hard landing
- 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 › Proper descent rate, not maintained
Approximate · Coordinates as recorded by the NTSB; no uncertainty radius is established.
NTSB narrative
THE HOMEBUILT AIRPLANE PERFORMED A THREE POINT LANDING ON A HARD SURFACE RUNWAY ACCORDING TO THE PILOT. DURING THE INITIAL LANDING ROLL THE AIRPLANE DRIFTED TO THE RIGHT, THE PILOT CORRECTED WITH LEFT RUDDER. DURING THE AIRPLANE'S MOVEMENT TOWARD THE RUNWAY CENTERLINE, THE RIGHT MAIN LANDING GEAR COLLAPSED. APPROXIMATELY FIVE YEARS PRIOR TO THIS EVENT, THE AIRPLANE EXPERIENCED A RIGHT MAIN LANDING GEAR COLLAPSE DUE TO A HARD LANDING. SHORTLY AFTER THE LANDING GEAR REPAIR, THE AIRPLANE EXPERIENCED A SECOND HARD LANDING. THE AIRPLANE LOGBOOK DID NOT SPECIFY IF THE LANDING GEAR ASSEMBLY HAD COLLAPSED AFTER THE SECOND HARD LANDING.
Probable cause
THE PILOT IN COMMAND NOT MAINTAINING A PROPER DESCENT RATE DURING THE FINAL APPROACH AND LANDING FLARE PHASE OF FLIGHT.
Verbatim NTSB analysis and probable cause from the NTSB dataset
Sources
NTSB record CHI93LA321
- Event ID
- 20001211X13104
- Case number
- CHI93LA321
- 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: 432b41bb9585b4cc53cc8a302ab12a9efa9f007b5e4834971dd36978529e1599; retrieved 2026-09-23T01:45:18.517Z.