DEN06LA055 · McLaughlin Rans S-7
McLaughlin Rans S-7 · Accident: loss of control in flight during landing
From Platte Valley Airpark (18V) to Platte Valley Airpark (18V)
Event
- NTSB case
- DEN06LA055
- 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
McLaughlin Rans S-7
- Aircraft type
- Mclaughlin RANS S-7
- 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
- N924LB
- Operator
- Unknown
- Onboard fatalities
- Unknown
- Route
- From Platte Valley Airpark (18V), Hudson, COTo Platte Valley Airpark (18V), Hudson, CO
- 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
- 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
According to the pilot there was no intention to land. He stated that he had no recollection after turning final, but did recall "radical maneuvering to avoid hitting" the tank. According to the statement submitted by the pilot-rated passenger, the airplane touched down and the pilot "had trouble with directional control." The passenger stated that the pilot added power, became airborne, and struck the tank, resulting in substantial damage. An examination of the airplane's systems revealed no anomalies. The routine aviation weather report reported, wind 340 degrees at 21 knots, gusting to 27 knots; with peak wind recorded at 29 minutes past the hour at 230 degrees at 29 knots. According to the FAA, the pilot did not hold a tailwheel endorsement.
Probable cause
the pilot's failure to maintain control of the airplane during an attempted landing. Contributing factors include the pilot's improper in-flight planning and decision making, the pilot's lack of experience in tailwheel airplanes, the pilot's lack of a tailwheel endorsement, and the gusty winds.
Verbatim NTSB analysis and probable cause from the NTSB dataset
Sources
NTSB record DEN06LA055
- Event ID
- 20060411X00420
- Case number
- DEN06LA055
- 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: bf0d9e58c8ea9f877be00458885891e008a9937e6b797b33053d6fa6efd791db; retrieved 2026-09-21T08:59:29.286Z.