BFO92LA115 · George A Chaffee KITFOX II
George A Chaffee KITFOX II · Accident: loss of control in flight during initial climb
Event
- NTSB case
- BFO92LA115
- 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
George A Chaffee KITFOX II
- Aircraft type
- George A Chaffee KITFOX
- Category
- Ultralight
- 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
- N376GC
- Operator
- Chaffee, George · private individual
- Onboard fatalities
- Unknown
- Route
- From not recordedTo 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
- Loss of control in flight
- 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; Tree(s)
- 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 › Airspeed, not maintained
- Pilot in command › Stall, inadvertent
Approximate · Estimated position: the centre of Shelburne, VT, the place the record names. Not the accident site.
NTSB narrative
THIS WAS THE PILOT'S FIRST FLIGHT SINCE HE BUILT THE AIRPLANE. ACCORDING TO THE PILOT, HE WAS GOING TO STAY IN THE TRAFFIC PATTERN TO PRACTICE TOUCH AND GO LANDINGS; HOWEVER, DURING THE INITIAL CLIMB THE LEFT DOOR ' POPPED OPEN,' AND THE PILOT BECAME DISTRACTED MOMENTARILY. HE STATED THAT THE FLIGHT HAD CLIMBED TO ABOUT 75 TO 100 FEET, AND HE REDUCED THE POWER TO TRY TO LAND ON THE REMAINING RUNWAY, BUT THE AIRPLANE VEERED TO THE LEFT OF THE RUNWAY IN THE PATH OF TREES. HE STATED THAT HE TRIED TO AVOID THE TREE TOPS BY PULLING BACK ON THE YOKE, BUT THE AIRPLANE STALLED AND CAME TO REST BETWEEN TWO TREES. THE PILOT STATED THAT THERE WAS NO MECHANICAL MALFUNCTION, AND THE ACCIDENT COULD HAVE BEEN PREVENTED IF HE HAD INSTALLED A POSITIVE LATCHING MECHANISM ON THE DOOR.
Probable cause
THE PILOT'S FAILURE TO MAINTAIN ADEQUATE AIRSPEED WHICH RESULTED IN A STALL. CONTRIBUTING WAS THE PILOT'S DIVERTED ATTENTION TO AN OPEN DOOR, AND AN INADEQUATE PREFLIGHT INSPECTION.
Verbatim NTSB analysis and probable cause from the NTSB dataset
Sources
NTSB record BFO92LA115
- Event ID
- 20001211X15082
- Case number
- BFO92LA115
- 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: ae67787820001b3254812f59529bec345bba80f70d4f1c7d933312b83e220e4a; retrieved 2026-09-21T23:12:06.268Z.