NYC99LA221 · Valenza VOLKSPLANE VP-II VOLKSPLANE
Valenza VOLKSPLANE VP-II VOLKSPLANE · Accident: in flight collision with object during initial climb
From VT (no airport) to Northeast Kingdom International Airport (EFK)
Event
- NTSB case
- NYC99LA221
- 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
- 1 · 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
Valenza VOLKSPLANE VP-II VOLKSPLANE
- Aircraft type
- Valenza VOLKSPLANE VP-II
- 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
- N8535B
- Operator
- Unknown
- Onboard fatalities
- Unknown
- Route
- From VT (no airport)To Northeast Kingdom International Airport (EFK), Newport, VT
- 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
- In flight collision with object
- 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
- 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
- Destroyed
Cause areas
- Pilot in command › Altitude/clearance, inadequate
Approximate · Estimated position: the centre of Westmore, VT, the place the record names. Not the accident site.
NTSB narrative
The pilot had recently bought the homebuilt airplane, which hadn't been flown in the previous 3 years, and he reassembled it at his airstrip. He conducted an engine ground test, and subsequently decided to change the original propeller to one with a smaller diameter in order to prevent ground strike damage. The pilot then decided to fly the airplane to another airport, where additional repairs could be made. It was his first flight in the accident airplane, and according to a witness, the takeoff was conducted under 'fairly calm' wind conditions. The airplane began its takeoff roll about 250 feet from the approach end of the grass airstrip, on a downwards slope. It lifted off after rolling about 1,000 feet, but did not gain enough altitude to avoid 50-foot trees at the far end. It turned toward the left, but then descended into two pine trees which were in a gully, and below the elevation of the airstrip. The airplane sheared off the treetops, then rolled inverted, and struck the ground. The engine was heard operating strongly throughout the takeoff attempt, and the wooden propeller blades were shattered. The pilot had about 300 hours of flight time.
Probable cause
The pilot's failure to maintain adequate altitude/clearance from the trees. A related factor was the pilot's lack of familiarity with the airplane.
Verbatim NTSB analysis and probable cause from the NTSB dataset
Sources
NTSB record NYC99LA221
- Event ID
- 20001212X19859
- Case number
- NYC99LA221
- 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: 3e42f68c13088d876b3900d857dc8d56faa3dd6ee4b4f198335826c741a585a9; retrieved 2026-09-20T21:49:18.394Z.