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DEN99LA078 · Bell/Mason RV-6

14 May 1999 · Albuquerque, NM, United States

Bell/Mason RV-6 · Accident: in flight encounter with weather on approach

From Hicks Air Field (T67) to Aek Godang Airport (AEG)

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Event

NTSB case
DEN99LA078
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

Bell/Mason RV-6

Aircraft type
Bell/mason RV-6
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
N107BB
Operator
Unknown
Onboard fatalities
Unknown
Route
From Hicks Air Field (T67), FT. WORTH, TXTo Aek Godang Airport (AEG)
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
Approach · VFR pattern final
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 encounter with weather
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

  • Aircraft control › Not maintained
  • Reason for occurrence undetermined

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

NTSB narrative

The airplane was on final approach for runway 22, and the wind was 260 degrees at 22 knots with gusts to 31 knots. A witness reported that moments before the accident, the wind shifted around to the right approximately 90 degrees. The pilot said the airplane suddenly yawed to the right 35 to 45 degrees, and he executed a go-around. A pilot flying a helicopter approximately 1 mile behind the accident airplane reported seeing the airplane 'dutch roll' approximately 3 or 4 times with bank angles of approximately 35 to 40 degrees. The airplane appeared to 'snap roll to the left,' and stall/mush to the ground with the left wing tip impacting first.

Probable cause

The loss of aircraft control for undetermined reasons. Factors were the sudden wind shift and wind gusts weather condition.

Verbatim NTSB analysis and probable cause from the NTSB dataset

Sources

NTSB record DEN99LA078
Event ID
20001212X18748
Case number
DEN99LA078
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: c9cac420d1071b89631f8b78582e665b247aadfc147e007b9859405e686239b2; retrieved 2026-09-22T15:14:27.703Z.