SEA06CA094 · Harold Vander Avid Flyer
Harold Vander Avid Flyer · Accident: airframe, component or system failure on approach
From Sunday Creek Airpark (MT29) to Sunday Creek Airpark (MT29)
Event
- NTSB case
- SEA06CA094
- 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
Harold Vander Avid Flyer
- Aircraft type
- Harold Vander AVID FLYER
- 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
- N157VM
- Operator
- Unknown
- Onboard fatalities
- Unknown
- Route
- From Sunday Creek Airpark (MT29), Miles City, MTTo Sunday Creek Airpark (MT29), Miles City, MT
- 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 · VFR pattern downwind
- 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
- Airframe, component or system failure
- 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
- Reduction gear assembly › Failure
Approximate · Coordinates from the NTSB case API, which marks them as estimated or does not say; no uncertainty radius is established.
NTSB narrative
The experimental amateur built airplane sustained substantial damage during an off-airport landing. The pilot reported that shortly after takeoff, approximately 250 feet above ground level (agl), the "reduction gear failed" and he was forced to land on a dirt road near the departure airstrip. During the landing, the airplane encountered tall vegetation and ground-looped resulting in substantial damage. Post accident inspection showed that the engine-to-propeller planetary style reduction gear housing was fractured. Further examination revealed that the center drive gear was damaged and heavy smearing was observed to the drive teeth. The reduction gear assembly was identified as a GRD 2000, manufactured by D&D Manufacturing. According to the pilot, D&D manufacturing is no longer in business. The pilot reported that he was not the aircraft's original owner/builder. The aircraft was powered by a 45-horsepower Cuyuna reciprocating gas engine.
Probable cause
Failure of the engine to propeller reduction gearbox for undetermined reasons. High vegetation was a factor.
Verbatim NTSB analysis and probable cause from the NTSB dataset
Sources
NTSB record SEA06CA094
- Event ID
- 20060609X00729
- Case number
- SEA06CA094
- 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: 91f516103ba4cd25fbb50dcb6239cc6cd2b1893a635ec3f328a1d7d7dfbc3051; retrieved 2026-09-22T04:55:26.376Z.