MIA00LA153 · Mclarty VANS RV-4
Mclarty VANS RV-4 · Accident: loss of engine power while maneuvering
From Apex, NC to an unrecorded destination
Event
- NTSB case
- MIA00LA153
- 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
- 2 · 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
Mclarty VANS RV-4
- Aircraft type
- Mclarty VANS RV-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
- N45DR
- Operator
- Unknown
- Onboard fatalities
- Unknown
- Route
- From Apex, NCTo 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
- Maneuvering
- 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 engine power
- 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
- 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
No findings designated as a cause are recorded in the NTSB data yet.
Approximate · Coordinates from the NTSB case API, which marks them as estimated or does not say; no uncertainty radius is established.
NTSB narrative
A witness observed the airplane on takeoff roll; the airplane became airborne and started a shallow left turn over the trees. The witness heard a sound like the engine backfired, observed black smoke- and watched the airplane until it disappeared from view. Another witness saw the airplane through the window of his house. The nose of the airplane was in a 45-degree nose high attitude over the trees and he did not hear any engine noise. It appeared to the witness that the pilot did not have control of the airplane. It came down like a tree falling. The airplane collide with the ground wings level with the fuselage intact and slid about 10 feet before colliding with trees in his front yard. Examination of the airframe flight controls and engine assembly revealed no evidence of a precrash mechanical failure or malfunction.
Probable cause
The loss of engine power for undetermined reasons, and the pilot's failure to maintain airspeed resulting in an inadvertent stall and subsequent collision with terrain.
Verbatim NTSB analysis and probable cause from the NTSB dataset
Sources
NTSB record MIA00LA153
- Event ID
- 20001212X21068
- Case number
- MIA00LA153
- 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, coordinates. 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: 9dc569d0b42bcb9732cb96f5b93a3200b473555935b55b48e9fc673e5bd327ee; retrieved 2026-09-20T21:13:50.710Z.