CHI05CA089 · Franz RV-6
Franz RV-6 · Accident: loss of control on ground/water during landing
From Livingston County Spencer J. Hardy Airport (OZW) to OZW
Event
- NTSB case
- CHI05CA089
- 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
Franz RV-6
- Aircraft type
- Franz RV-6
- 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
- N215CF
- Operator
- Unknown
- Onboard fatalities
- Unknown
- Route
- From Livingston County Spencer J. Hardy Airport (OZW), Howell, MITo OZW
- 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 · landing roll
- 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 on ground/water
- 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 › Compensation for wind conditions, inadequate
- Pilot in command › Directional control, not maintained
Approximate · Coordinates from the NTSB case API, which marks them as estimated or does not say; no uncertainty radius is established.
NTSB narrative
The amateur-built airplane was substantially damaged when it departed the runway pavement and nosed over during the landing rollout. The pilot reported that he entered the traffic pattern for landing on runway 13. He stated that a three-point landing was made on the centerline and at idle engine power. He noted that as the airplane passed a hangar off the right side of the runway the prevailing crosswind was reduced. The pilot stated: "I was slow getting the left rudder off [and] the plane went left slightly. [The airplane] got hit hard by [a] blast of wind coming off the east side of the hangar [and] the plane nosed slightly more left. I'd estimate we were down to 25-30 knots when the left main wheel left the runway [and] hit the soft sod. The nose went down -- the tail came up [and] blew over. The aircraft came to rest inverted." Winds were from 220 degrees at 16 knots, gusting to 22 knots. Flight control and tail wheel steering continuity were confirmed.
Probable cause
The pilot's failure to maintain directional control during the landing rollout which resulted in the aircraft departing the runway pavement and nosing over. An additional cause was the pilot's inadequate compensation for the crosswind condition. Contributing factors were the gusty crosswind and the soft grass.
Verbatim NTSB analysis and probable cause from the NTSB dataset
Sources
NTSB record CHI05CA089
- Event ID
- 20050415X00464
- Case number
- CHI05CA089
- Dataset
- historical-pre2008
- Source SHA-256
- 89e2df6d848e7ab3b42e7d7c7a03ff403303057a26ca04c95b3ea67201c3ce74
Source notes (5)
- 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: 5beb452790180ec89d85e00aab921e81d33ed751862517564b89f0c7e9e6ffa4; retrieved 2026-09-21T09:08:55.449Z.
- Corrected after a review of the NTSB narrative, which states these values explicitly: damage. The narrative states "The amateur-built airplane was substantially damaged when it departed the runway pavement and nosed over during the landing rollout."