IAD01LA108 · Von Claparede Clemen Preceptor-Ultra
Von Claparede Clemen Preceptor-Ultra · Accident: in flight collision with terrain/water while maneuvering
From New River Valley Airport (PSK) to New River Valley Airport (PSK)
Event
- NTSB case
- IAD01LA108
- 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
- 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
Von Claparede Clemen Preceptor-Ultra
- Aircraft type
- Von Claparede Clemen PRECEPTOR-ULTRA
- 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
- N66VC
- Operator
- Unknown
- Onboard fatalities
- Unknown
- Route
- From New River Valley Airport (PSK), Dublin, VATo New River Valley Airport (PSK)
- 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
- In flight collision with terrain/water
- 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 › Altitude/clearance, not 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 approached a mountain ridge at a 45-degree angle, "at the same altitude as the ridge." As he flew closer to the ridge, the airplane experienced a "modest downdraft," and the pilot added power to maintain his altitude. When the pilot noticed that he would not be able to climb over the ridge, he turned the airplane back toward the valley to regain altitude. During the turn, the airplane experienced a "substantial downdraft combined with windshear." The pilot added full power; however, the airplane's altitude continued to decrease at about 2,500 feet per minute, and the airplane impacted trees. The pilot reported no mechanical deficiencies with the airplane. The winds reported at an airport 5 miles away were from 330 degrees at 11 knots, gusting to 15 knots.
Probable cause
The pilot's failure to maintain sufficient altitude/clearance, which resulted in the airplane's collision with terrain. A factor was the downdraft.
Verbatim NTSB analysis and probable cause from the NTSB dataset
Sources
NTSB record IAD01LA108
- Event ID
- 20011011X02074
- Case number
- IAD01LA108
- 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: 472ea908b1fd66df0063c26aa662d98418ad1045b8105105efbb98b43f1031ed; retrieved 2026-09-22T11:32:40.041Z.