CHI06LA163 · Varga 2150A
Varga 2150A · Accident: in flight collision with object while maneuvering
From Fall River, WI (private airstrip) to Capitol Drive Airport (02C)
Event
- NTSB case
- CHI06LA163
- 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
Varga 2150A
- Aircraft type
- Varga 2150
- 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
- N8267J
- Operator
- Unknown
- Onboard fatalities
- Unknown
- Route
- From Fall River, WI (private airstrip)To Capitol Drive Airport (02C), Brookfield, WI
- 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 object
- 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 airplane was destroyed during an in-flight collision with trees and terrain, and a subsequent post-impact fire. Witnesses reported observing the airplane in low altitude flight along a river before it struck an overhanging tree limb. One witness reported that he saw the airplane flying the "terrain of the land about 50 feet above ground level," and that it proceeded "down the river really low." A second witness stated that he observed the airplane about 20 - 30 feet above the river. He reported that it banked as if attempting to follow a bend in the river when it appeared to strike the top of a tree. A third witness stated that he observed the airplane flying below the tree line and that it appeared to be attempting to follow the river. He noted that it apparently tried to climb when it clipped a tree and began to lose altitude. The airplane came to rest in a field on the opposite side of the river. A section of the right wing separated following the collision with the tree and was recovered from the river. The post accident examination did not reveal any anomalies consistent with a pre-impact failure. Toxicology testing indicated the presence of marijuana in the pilot's blood and lung tissue. The levels of marijuana noted in the report were consistent with the pilot being impaired at the time of the accident.
Probable cause
The pilot's failure to maintain adequate clearance from the trees during the attempted low altitude pass along the river. Contributing factors were the intentional low altitude flight maneuver, the pilot's improper decision to attempt that maneuver, and his impairment due to the effects of marijuana.
Verbatim NTSB analysis and probable cause from the NTSB dataset
Sources
NTSB record CHI06LA163
- Event ID
- 20060627X00839
- Case number
- CHI06LA163
- 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: b86e7f9d54fa75a4bafccc8f99ec891964e81858562e3c43b6bdbec2abf3d879; retrieved 2026-09-20T17:16:29.901Z.