ANC06LA029 · Cooper Harmon Rocket ll
Cooper Harmon Rocket ll · Accident: in flight collision with terrain/water while maneuvering
From McKittrick, CA to an unrecorded destination
Event
- NTSB case
- ANC06LA029
- 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
- Visual Meteorological Cond
Cooper Harmon Rocket ll
- Aircraft type
- Cooper HARMON ROCKET LL
- 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
- N96CR
- Operator
- Unknown
- Onboard fatalities
- Unknown
- Route
- From McKittrick, CATo 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
- 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 collision with terrain/water
- 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 › Altitude/clearance, 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 private pilot of the amateur built experimental airplane was conducting a solo, local flight under Title 14, CFR Part 91. He departed a private strip on the family's ranch, and proceeded to perform low level aerobatic flight maneuvers within view of his family's homes, and a camping area located on the ranch frequented by family and friends. Numerous family and friends watched as he passed overhead, inverted, and waving. Witnesses said he appeared to be departing the area doing rolls, when the airplane suddenly pitched down and impacted the ground. The airplane was destroyed by impact and postcrash fire. The wreckage was examined onsite by an FAA inspector, who said flight control continuity could not be established due to the extensive damage. The pilot built the airplane, and had an experimental airplane maintenance certificate for the airplane. No maintenance or pilot records were discovered for examination. Ranch personnel buried the airplane wreckage on the property, and the airplane wreckage was not examined by the NTSB. An autopsy of the pilot disclosed that the pilot died of multiple blunt force trauma injuries. The pilot did not have an FAA waiver to perform low altitude aerobatics.
Probable cause
The pilot's failure to maintain altitude/clearance while performing intentional low altitude aerobatic flight maneuvers. Factors associated with the accident are the low altitude aerobatic flight maneuvers.
Verbatim NTSB analysis and probable cause from the NTSB dataset
Sources
NTSB record ANC06LA029
- Event ID
- 20060403X00380
- Case number
- ANC06LA029
- 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: 3cff2b260a3edd524276e6ce5c38235d01a247898dc5c1020b5a8f9bfcf3e4bb; retrieved 2026-09-20T17:27:44.446Z.