DFW07LA032 · Noble Vans RV-7A
Noble Vans RV-7A · Accident: loss of control in flight on approach
From Twin Lakes Airport (2OK2) to University of Oklahoma Westheimer Airport (OUN)
Event
- NTSB case
- DFW07LA032
- 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
- 2 · 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
Noble Vans RV-7A
- Aircraft type
- Noble VANS RV-7A
- 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
- N216RV
- Operator
- Unknown
- Onboard fatalities
- Unknown
- Route
- From Twin Lakes Airport (2OK2), Midwest City, OKTo University of Oklahoma Westheimer Airport (OUN), Norman, OK
- 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 base
- 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
- 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
- Stall/spin
- 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 › Airspeed, not maintained
- Pilot in command › Stall/spin, inadvertent
Approximate · Coordinates as recorded by the NTSB; no uncertainty radius is established.
NTSB narrative
The 325-hour private pilot lost control of the single-engine homebuilt airplane while initiating the approach and landing phase of the flight. The accident airplane was selected to be the last to land in trail as a flight of three. The tower operator cleared the flight of 3 airplanes to land on Runway 03. The tower operator reported that as he watched the first airplane land, he noticed the sun reflect off the third airplane and observed it go below a tree line. Numerous witnesses observed the accident airplane approach the airfield. Several witnesses reported that the airplane was low or very low, and as it approached the airfield. The witnesses observed the accident airplane made a sharp bank, just before impacting the ground. Furthermore, one of the witnesses stated that the airplane was "struggling, tipping left-and-right, and he thought it was going to tip over" before entering a sudden 90-degree turn and assuming a pronounced nose-low attitude. The pilots of the other two airplanes in the flight, stated that prior to the flight they had agreed to slow their airplanes to 70 mph, and then to 65 mph in order to maintain proper spacing between the airplanes during their approach to land. Flight control continuity was established and the flaps were confirmed to be in the fully extended position. An examination of the airplane and engine did not reveal any anomalies that prevented normal operation.
Probable cause
The pilot's failure to maintain airspeed which resulted in an inadvertent stall. A contributing factor was the pilot's attempt at formation flying.
Verbatim NTSB analysis and probable cause from the NTSB dataset
Sources
NTSB record DFW07LA032
- Event ID
- 20061207X01753
- Case number
- DFW07LA032
- 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. 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: 4f8a572a1e72fbf543af09931bc26c3e2342ac268b35377278132353f7a443ac; retrieved 2026-09-20T16:58:24.728Z.