ATL04LA109 · Bergmann RANS S-12 XL Airaile
Bergmann RANS S-12 XL Airaile · Accident: in flight collision with object during landing
From Mountain Airpark (0GE5) to GA27 · Cumming, GA
Event
- NTSB case
- ATL04LA109
- 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
Bergmann RANS S-12 XL Airaile
- Aircraft type
- Bergmann RANS S-12 XL AIRAILE
- 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
- N8KD
- Operator
- Unknown
- Onboard fatalities
- Unknown
- Route
- From Mountain Airpark (0GE5), Cleveland, GATo GA27 · Cumming, GA
- 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
- Landing · aborted
- 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 object
- 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
- Tree(s); Wire, transmission
- 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 › Judgment, poor
- Unqualified person › Lack of certification
Approximate · Coordinates as recorded by the NTSB; no uncertainty radius is established.
NTSB narrative
Witnesses at the airport stated that it was dark outside and that the runway was not equipped with runway edge lights. The witnesses aligned their cars along the end of the runway and turned on their headlights. The noncertificated pilot made three low approaches to runway 21, but on the third approach, the pilot banked the airplane to the left to avoid a collision with the wind sock. The airplane descended and witnesses lost sight of the airplane. Witnesses next reported hearing the on-board ballistic rocket system detonating followed by a power line transformer explosion. The airplane was located 275 feet, southeast of the airport in a nose low vertical attitude. Examination of flight controls revealed continuity. There were paint smears on the back spar and the propeller blade. The two fuel tanks were not ruptured and over six gallons of fuel were recovered. The toxicology report revealed that the pilot had a blood alcohol level of .074%. Fluoxetine (a prescription antidepressant) was also detected in the pilot's blood.
Probable cause
The unqualified person's poor judgement and his failed to maintain clearance from power lines and trees while maneuvering for a landing which resulted in the in-flight collision with trees and power lines. Factors were the dark night and the unqualified person's physical impairment due to alcohol consumption.
Verbatim NTSB analysis and probable cause from the NTSB dataset
Sources
NTSB record ATL04LA109
- Event ID
- 20040511X00587
- Case number
- ATL04LA109
- 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: local date, investigation status. Values present in the bulk record are kept.
- The date is the local date; the NTSB stores the UTC date 2004-05-06.
- API snapshot SHA-256: 2ce166cba0bfa61692efcfa63b1d36a71f7cff0a274c15e9b822872a242d7ede; retrieved 2026-09-20T18:29:29.674Z.