DEN03FA030 · Silvius Rans S-12XL
Silvius Rans S-12XL · Accident: loss of control in flight while maneuvering
From Laramie Regional Airport (LAR) to an unrecorded destination
Event
- NTSB case
- DEN03FA030
- 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
- 1 · 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
Silvius Rans S-12XL
- Aircraft type
- Silvius RANS S-12XL
- 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
- UNREG
- Operator
- Unknown
- Onboard fatalities
- Unknown
- Route
- From Laramie Regional Airport (LAR), Laramie, WYTo 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 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/mush
- DamageDestroyed: beyond practical repair. Substantial: damage that affects the structure, performance or handling and normally needs major repair. Minor: less than that. Glossary
- Destroyed
Cause areas
- Pilot in command › Aircraft control, not maintained
- Pilot in command › Stall/mush, inadvertent
Approximate · Coordinates from the NTSB case API, which marks them as estimated or does not say; no uncertainty radius is established.
NTSB narrative
The ultra light was observed flying over a city park at a very low altitude and very slow. Several witnesses in the park reported that the pilot waved at them and was smiling. One witness said the aircraft's wings rocked several times, its nose pointed at the ground, it rotated to the right, and it crashed. No preimpact engine or airframe anomalies were identified that might have affected the airplane's performance. Toxicological analysis on two different specimens of the pilot's blood performed at two different locations indicated two substantially different levels of ethanol. No other specimens were tested for ethanol. The pilot's autopsy was conducted 3 days following the accident, and it is not possible to determine conclusively whether the ethanol reported is from ingestion or post-mortem production. A half-full bottle of alcohol was found in the pilot's vehicle. Toxicology examination also revealed high levels of diphenhydramine, an over-the-counter antihistamine with sedative effects, often known by the trade name Benadryl. The pilot had been prescribed a low dose of Effexor (venlafaxine), a prescription antidepressant medication.
Probable cause
the pilot's failure to maintain aircraft control, resulting in an inadvertent stall/mush. Contributing factors include the pilot's use of an over-the-counter antihistamine, and the pilot's inadequate in-flight decision to fly at low altitude.
Verbatim NTSB analysis and probable cause from the NTSB dataset
Sources
NTSB record DEN03FA030
- Event ID
- 20030110X00045
- Case number
- DEN03FA030
- 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: 9149a8bc61f0a3c3d5c11be6357046b6ef0ee466c8ab5c4df88f033ba86d4796; retrieved 2026-09-20T19:31:58.054Z.