CHI04CA115 · Villeneuve RV-3
Villeneuve RV-3 · Accident: loss of control in flight on approach
From Philip Billard Municipal Airport (TOP) to Mayetta, KS (private airstrip)
Event
- NTSB case
- CHI04CA115
- 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
Villeneuve RV-3
- Aircraft type
- Villeneuve RV-3
- 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
- N12JV
- Operator
- Unknown
- Onboard fatalities
- Unknown
- Route
- From Philip Billard Municipal Airport (TOP), Topeka, KSTo Mayetta, KS (private airstrip)
- 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 final
- 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; Tree(s)
- 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 › Aircraft control, not maintained
- Pilot in command › Airspeed, not maintained
- Pilot in command › Remedial action, improper
- Pilot in command › Stall/mush, encountered
Approximate · Coordinates from the NTSB case API, which marks them as estimated or does not say; no uncertainty radius is established.
NTSB narrative
The airplane impacted trees while on final approach. The pilot reported that when he was on final approach, approximately 100-200 feet above ground level, the airplane "suddenly and abruptly rolled approximately 30 degrees right and then left while the nose maintained the same pitch attitude." The pilot stated he was able to level the wings, however, the "controls felt abnormally mushy." The pilot also reported that the "rate of descent also suddenly increased to a dangerous level." The pilot stated he added full engine power, but the aircraft kept descending. The pilot reported, "Given the mushy controls and rate of descent I was afraid to pull up too much and risk a stall. The aircraft was already at a nose high angle of attack... It already felt like it was on the edge of a stall. [The] aircraft continued to feel unstable with a dangerously high sink rate." The pilot reported the airplane was unable to "build up enough speed to break out of wind currents before contacting trees."
The pilot reported that the winds were from the south at 15 knots, gusting to 20 knots. The pilot stated the wind conditions were at his "upper personal limitations" and that he had previously landed in similar conditions. Surface wind data was collected from nearby weather observation facilities. The collected wind data indicated the winds at the time of the accident were from the south-southwest, between 9 and 18 knots.
Probable cause
The pilot failed to maintain airspeed and aircraft control during final approach, which resulted in a stall/mush flight condition. A factor to the accident was the crosswind and the trees.
Verbatim NTSB analysis and probable cause from the NTSB dataset
Sources
NTSB record CHI04CA115
- Event ID
- 20040520X00624
- Case number
- CHI04CA115
- 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: 2d68540edf880ce1f283056a8d0cc35a22e9adf0f2a24c93d00e26997ca1efbe; retrieved 2026-09-22T07:35:39.793Z.