CHI05CA126 · Young Zodiac 601XL
Young Zodiac 601XL · Accident: loss of control in flight during landing
From Coles County Memorial Airport (MTO) to an unrecorded destination
Event
- NTSB case
- CHI05CA126
- 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
Young Zodiac 601XL
- Aircraft type
- Young ZODIAC 601
- 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
- N601AY
- Operator
- Unknown
- Onboard fatalities
- Unknown
- Route
- From Coles County Memorial Airport (MTO), Matoon, ILTo 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
- Landing · flare/touchdown
- 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
- 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
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 impacted the runway while landing. The accident occurred during the third flight of the experimental airplane. The pilot reported that he remained in the traffic pattern after takeoff with the intention of performing several stop-and-go landings. He stated that as he turned final he decided to approach at 90 miles-per-hour (mph) instead of the normal 80 mph approach speed. This was in order to evaluate the airplane's handling characteristics while in ground effect and during the landing flare. The pilot stated: "As I reached the [runway] numbers I reduced power slightly to begin my descent to the runway. The next thing I knew I had hit the runway." The pilot reported no mechanical malfunctions of the aircraft related to the accident. Reported winds did not exceed 10 knots.
Probable cause
The pilot's failure to maintain control of the airplane during the landing flare resulting in an in-flight collision with the runway pavement.
Verbatim NTSB analysis and probable cause from the NTSB dataset
Sources
NTSB record CHI05CA126
- Event ID
- 20050616X00786
- Case number
- CHI05CA126
- 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: 70f3e5b72b016a1cf424a5a35bddbf90742043d2a1496c695dce1b026f6dc7ab; retrieved 2026-09-22T05:53:01.349Z.