NYC06FA072 · Lancair Company LC41-550FG
Lancair Company LC41-550FG · Accident: in flight collision with object on approach
From Smith Reynolds Airport (INT) to Stafford Regional Airport (RMN)
Narrative check · The NTSB narrative appears to contradict this record's departure or destination. Values are shown as recorded, not corrected; compare with the narrative.
Event
- NTSB case
- NYC06FA072
- 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
- 4 · 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
Lancair Company LC41-550FG
- Aircraft type
- Lancair LC41
- 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
- N400WX
- Operator
- Richard Potter
- Onboard fatalities
- Unknown
- Route Possible conflict
- From Smith Reynolds Airport (INT), Winston-Salem, NCTo Stafford Regional Airport (RMN), Stafford, VA
- 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
- 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)
- DamageDestroyed: beyond practical repair. Substantial: damage that affects the structure, performance or handling and normally needs major repair. Minor: less than that. Glossary
- Destroyed
Cause areas
- Pilot in command › Procedures/directives, not followed
Approximate · Coordinates from the NTSB case API, which marks them as estimated or does not say; no uncertainty radius is established.
NTSB narrative
The pilot attempted a night Global Positioning System (GPS) instrument approach to an airport, but executed a missed approach. He subsequently requested, and flew an ILS approach to another airport. Radar and transponder returns confirmed the airplane flew the localizer course down to about 200 feet above ground level (agl). Weather, about the time of the accident, included calm winds, 1 1/4 statute miles visibility, light drizzle, and an overcast ceiling 500 feet agl. There were no witnesses to the accident; however, when a passenger's wife arrived at the airport minutes later, she noted "spots" of fog and a fog layer above her. She later noted that a police cruiser with flashing lights was lost in the fog when it drove out on the tarmac. The airplane's wreckage was located in a wooded area, about 300 yards left of the runway, 3/4 of the way down its 5,000-foot length. Tree cuts were consistent with the airplane having been in a 30-degree left turn. The missed approach procedure was to climb to 600 feet above mean sea level (400 feet agl), then make a climbing left turn to 2,000 feet, direct to a VORTAC and hold. There was no evidence of mechanical malfunction.
Probable cause
The pilot's failure to execute the published missed approach. Factors included the night lighting conditions, low ceilings and fog.
Verbatim NTSB analysis and probable cause from the NTSB dataset
Sources
NTSB record NYC06FA072
- Event ID
- 20060315X00306
- Case number
- NYC06FA072
- 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, coordinates. Values present in the bulk record are kept.
- The date is the local date; the NTSB stores the UTC date 2006-02-23.
- API snapshot SHA-256: ddfd85418a161137e6d3ebc6b6d9fd9718f907842ef2e0f5c1f8233127696ed3; retrieved 2026-09-20T17:31:27.328Z.