CHI05LA065 · Ramsey RV-8A
Ramsey RV-8A · Accident: in flight encounter with weather while maneuvering
From Terre Haute, IN to Fulton County Airport (RCR)
Event
- NTSB case
- CHI05LA065
- 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
- Instrument Meteorological Cond
Ramsey RV-8A
- Aircraft type
- Ramsey RV-8
- 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
- N44RX
- Operator
- Unknown
- Onboard fatalities
- Unknown
- Route
- From Terre Haute, INTo Fulton County Airport (RCR), Rochester, IN
- 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 encounter with weather
- 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)
- 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, inadequate
- Pilot in command › Clearance, not maintained
- Pilot in command › Flight into known adverse weather, intentional
- Pilot in command › Preflight briefing service, not used
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 contacted the trees and the terrain while maneuvering. The non-instrument rated pilot's initial transmission over the airport Unicom frequency was that he was six miles from the airport and that he was inbound for landing. Fifteen minutes later the pilot reported that he was going to circle near the airport and wait for the fog to lift. Shortly thereafter, the airplane impacted trees and descended into a frozen pond about one-half mile southeast of the airport. According to a witness, the visibility at the pilot's departure airport at the time of his departure was less then one-half mile due to fog. Visibility near the accident site at the time of the accident was described as being approximately 400 feet due to fog. The closest weather reporting facility, located 23 miles northeast of the accident site, was reporting one-quarter mile visibility due to freezing fog with a 100 foot overcast sky. Another weather reporting facility located 29 miles south of the accident site was reporting one-eighth of a mile visibility with freezing fog with clear skies. No record was found of the pilot having received a preflight weather briefing.
Probable cause
The pilot failed to obtain a preflight weather briefing for his destination airport and he initiated the flight into known adverse weather conditions at the departure airport. The pilot subsequently failed to maintain adequate altitude while circling the airport which resulted in the failure to maintain clearance with the trees. Factors associated with the accident were the fog and the trees.
Verbatim NTSB analysis and probable cause from the NTSB dataset
Sources
NTSB record CHI05LA065
- Event ID
- 20050208X00148
- Case number
- CHI05LA065
- 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: b00474ab5936b350b532cea331f9b5b28048bb3711bc9eac67ce2f0729cb1af2; retrieved 2026-09-20T18:07:43.907Z.