CHI07CA225 · Ryan ST3KR
Ryan ST3KR · Accident: in flight collision with terrain/water during initial climb
From Branch County Memorial Airport (OEB) to an unrecorded destination
Event
- NTSB case
- CHI07CA225
- 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
Ryan ST3KR
- Aircraft type
- Ryan ST3
- 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
- N59220
- Operator
- Unknown
- Onboard fatalities
- Unknown
- Route
- From Branch County Memorial Airport (OEB), Coldwater, MITo 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
- Initial climb
- 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
- 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/mush
- 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/mush, inadvertent
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 impacted terrain after takeoff from runway 16 (2,400 feet by 190 feet, turf). The pilot reported that they had stopped at the accident airport for fuel. At the time of their initial approach and landing winds aloft were from the east; however, surface winds were from the west. They subsequently landed on runway 25 (5,350 feet by 75 feet, asphalt) without incident. The pilot stated that after fueling surface winds had reversed direction. They were now from the east at 8 to 10 knots. He elected to use runway 16 for takeoff because he felt the airplane "handled better on grass." The pilot reported that when the airplane lifted off, it "felt light" and "loose controlled" so he lowered the nose in order to gain airspeed. He noted feeling a "slight bump or lift followed by a rapid drop of [the] left wing and nose." The airplane subsequently impacted the ground. Examination of the flight control system did not reveal any anomalies consistent with a pre-impact failure. Winds recorded by the departure airport Automated Weather Observing System (AWOS) within 5 minutes of the accident were from 140 degrees at 4 knots.
Probable cause
The pilot's failure to maintain sufficient airspeed during the initial climb after takeoff, which resulted in an inadvertent stall/mush condition. A contributing factor was the low altitude at the time of the inadvertent stall.
Verbatim NTSB analysis and probable cause from the NTSB dataset
Sources
NTSB record CHI07CA225
- Event ID
- 20070911X01366
- Case number
- CHI07CA225
- 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: 4a3c86b1eb99a95452c59ab45b25e6bb7c394d14c1c639d64fd704195d0c298f; retrieved 2026-09-21T08:46:26.444Z.