FTW00LA133 · Lake LA-4-200
Lake LA-4-200 · Accident: in flight collision with object on approach
From 107 · OK to an unrecorded destination
Event
- NTSB case
- FTW00LA133
- 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
Lake LA-4-200
- Aircraft type
- Lake LA-4
- 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
- N5023L
- Operator
- Kenneth L. Clark · private individual
- Onboard fatalities
- Unknown
- Route
- From 107 · OKTo 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
- Approach · VFR go-around
- 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
- Substantial
Cause areas
- Pilot in command › Clearance, not maintained
- Pilot in command › Go-around, delayed
Approximate · Coordinates as recorded by the NTSB; no uncertainty radius is established.
NTSB narrative
During the demonstration flight, the pilot-in-command (PIC)/airplane owner occupied the right front seat, and the prospective buyer occupied the left front seat. After circling the airport to confirm wind sock position and that the 2,400-foot grass runway was clear of obstructions, a pattern entry was made for landing to the south. On final approach, the pilots noted that the airplane was low on the approach, and the left seat pilot added power. Subsequently, the airplane was too far down the runway and the airspeed was too fast for the landing. The PIC called for a go-around, and the left seat pilot added full power. The airplane flew in ground effect, about 5 feet agl, for several hundred feet. Subsequently, the airplane climbed to about 20 feet agl, and the left seat pilot retracted the landing gear. The PIC raised the flaps, and the airplane settled to 5 to 10 feet agl and impacted a fence and trees. During a post accident compression check of the engine, the prospective buyer and his mechanic found that the #2 intake valve was leaking.
Probable cause
The pilot's premature raising of the flaps.
Verbatim NTSB analysis and probable cause from the NTSB dataset
Sources
NTSB record FTW00LA133
- Event ID
- 20001212X20822
- Case number
- FTW00LA133
- 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: 62a854b902a327858098ca36da3d7c86398e467c385bbdf617b5bfa380c682e5; retrieved 2026-09-21T20:14:51.640Z.