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CHI02FA059 · Borgman Smyth Sidewinder

28 Dec 2001 · Independence, KS, United States Possible conflict

Borgman Smyth Sidewinder · Accident: loss of control in flight on approach

From Coffeyville Municipal Airport (CFV) to an unrecorded destination

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Narrative check · The NTSB narrative appears to contradict this record's location. Values are shown as recorded, not corrected; compare with the narrative.

Event

NTSB case
CHI02FA059
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
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

Borgman Smyth Sidewinder

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
N133G
Operator
Unknown
Onboard fatalities
Unknown
Route
From Coffeyville Municipal Airport (CFV), Coffeyville, KSTo 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 pattern turn to base
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 control in flight
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

  • Unqualified person › Airspeed, not maintained

Approximate · Coordinates as recorded by the NTSB; no uncertainty radius is established.

NTSB narrative

The airplane collided with the terrain following an inflight loss of control approximately 1/4 mile east-northeast of a private airstrip. One witness reported the airplane made a touch and go landing on the airstrip just prior to the accident. The witness then saw the airplane flying to the east, traveling slow at an altitude of about 100 feet above the ground. He reported the airplane then turned south followed by a turn back to the east-northeast. The witness reported the last bank was "very steep." He reported that during the turn the right wing (top wing) dropped and the airplane descended straight into the ground. The owner of the airplane who was seated in the left seat, was not a certificated pilot. The owner/operator of a fixed base operator where the airplane was based reported the owner had flown the airplane an estimated 15 to 20 times prior to the accident and that he "usually" took passengers with him. This person also said that the owner was receiving flight instruction from a local pilot. (The local pilot was not a flight instructor and his pilot's certificate had been suspended.) The pilot rated passenger who occupied the right seat held a private pilot certificate. Inspection of the airframe, flight controls and engine failed to reveal any failure/malfunction that would have resulted in the loss of control. The airplane did not have an airworthiness certificate.

Probable cause

The pilot's failure to maintain control of the airplane and the subsequent inadvertant stall during the base to final turn. A factor associated with the accident was that an unqualified person was piloting the airplane.

Verbatim NTSB analysis and probable cause from the NTSB dataset

Sources

NTSB record CHI02FA059
Event ID
20011231X02467
Case number
CHI02FA059
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: 74fec2b1903ca235a0886e93d72d298ceaf2d13b888021a87d0969ddd10f2654; retrieved 2026-09-20T20:15:34.899Z.