LAX07LA278 · Skykits Savannah ADV
Skykits Savannah ADV · Accident: loss of control in flight during landing
From 00E · Lava Hot Spring, ID to 00E · Lava Hot Spring, ID
Event
- NTSB case
- LAX07LA278
- 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
Skykits Savannah ADV
- Aircraft type
- Skykits SAVANNAH ADV
- 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
- N769R
- Operator
- Unknown
- Onboard fatalities
- Unknown
- Route
- From 00E · Lava Hot Spring, IDTo 00E · Lava Hot Spring, ID
- 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 · flare/touchdown
- 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
The pilot had been recently certified as a light sport airplane instructor and wanted to become more proficient with crosswind landings from the right seat. The first takeoff and landing were normal. On the second landing, the pilot noted a moderate, variable crosswind, along with turbulent conditions. He maintained an airspeed of about 5 knots faster for taking off and landing. The pilot stated that as he flared for landing, the airplane floated down the runway as a result of "ground level turbulence." The nose unexpectedly dropped and struck the ground. The nose landing gear collapsed and the airplane nosed over, which caused structural damage to the fuselage. The pilot further reported that he had trimmed the airplane with a "significant nose-high attitude." However, based on manufacturer's illustration of the positions of the pivot plate and hinge point, the airplane had in fact been trimmed to a full nose-down position. A Safety Board metallurgist examined the elevator trim aft control rod and reported that the downward bending deformation at the fracture location was consistent with an overstress fracture under compression loading and no mechanical or design anomalies were noted.
Probable cause
Failure of the pilot to maintain aircraft control during landing.
Verbatim NTSB analysis and probable cause from the NTSB dataset
Sources
NTSB record LAX07LA278
- Event ID
- 20071018X01612
- Case number
- LAX07LA278
- 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: e4e7fd3a5b595d8c88ebfd1ce99a7b841d4443d12ac71174ec56b27668d40f70; retrieved 2026-09-22T03:25:27.137Z.