IAD01IA093 · Morrison Rans S-12
Morrison Rans S-12 · Incident: hard landing
From W66 · Midland, VA to W66 · Midland, VA
Narrative check · The NTSB narrative appears to contradict this record's flight rules. Values are shown as recorded, not corrected; compare with the narrative.
Event
- NTSB case
- IAD01IA093
- 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
- Incident
- 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
- Unknown
- 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
Morrison Rans S-12
- Aircraft type
- Morrison RANS S-12
- 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
- 12NVU
- Operator
- Unknown
- Onboard fatalities
- Unknown
- Route
- From W66 · Midland, VATo W66 · Midland, VA
- 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 Possible conflict
- 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
- Landing · flare/touchdown
- 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
- Hard landing
- DamageDestroyed: beyond practical repair. Substantial: damage that affects the structure, performance or handling and normally needs major repair. Minor: less than that. Glossary
- Minor
Cause areas
- Pilot in command › Proper descent rate, not obtained/maintained
Approximate · Coordinates from the NTSB case API, which marks them as estimated or does not say; no uncertainty radius is established.
NTSB narrative
The pilot was flying the unregistered homebuilt airplane at an air show in a spot-landing contest. The pilot said he had a hard landing, and broke the landing gear off of the airplane. The airplane was operated as an ultra light vehicle under an exemption from 14 CFR Part 103 on behalf of the United States Ultra light Association (USUA), and was placarded with a USUA registration number. The exemption provided for two-place airplanes that weigh more than the ultra light limit of 254 pounds, but less than 496 pounds, to be operated as ultra light vehicles solely for the purpose of ultra light flight instruction. The passenger in the airplane was not receiving flight instruction, and said he was just along for the ride. The pilot did not provide a report of the incident as required by NTSB regulation.
Probable cause
The pilot's failure to obtain/maintain the proper descent rate which resulted in a hard landing and separation of the landing gear. A factor in the incident was the pilot's improper decision to participate in an unauthorized activity with his airplane.
Verbatim NTSB analysis and probable cause from the NTSB dataset
Sources
NTSB record IAD01IA093
- Event ID
- 20010905X01882
- Case number
- IAD01IA093
- 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: 9c3b1552329593dde43763785f70d74eecbfa048a17e6541b5ae0e21ebb6f940; retrieved 2026-09-22T11:41:36.208Z.