ATL07CA123 · Vans Aircraft Vans RV-6
Vans Aircraft Vans RV-6 · Accident: loss of control on ground/water during landing
From Savannah Hilton Head International Airport (SAV) to Grant Airport (3GA0)
Event
- NTSB case
- ATL07CA123
- 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
Vans Aircraft Vans RV-6
- Aircraft type
- Vans RV-6
- 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
- N345JE
- Operator
- Unknown
- Onboard fatalities
- Unknown
- Route
- From Savannah Hilton Head International Airport (SAV), Savannah, GATo Grant Airport (3GA0), Stockbridge, GA
- 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 · landing roll
- 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 on ground/water
- 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 stated that he departed from Savannah International Airport, Savannah, Georgia, on a cross-country flight to his private strip in Stockbridge, Georgia. He said that during the landing roll at his private strip, he lost control of the airplane and collided with a tree. He further stated that when he examined his airplane, he noted that the leading edge of the right inboard wing was damaged. Also, he observed that the vertical stabilizer was bent slightly to the right. However, he did not feel that the airplane was substantially damaged so he decided not to report the accident. Furthermore, he said that he knew his brakes were not in the best condition, because if they were, he would have avoided the accident. The pilot felt that his airplane was still airworthy, so he flew the airplane over to Air Services Incorporated, Carrollton, Georgia to be repaired. While at the Air Services repair shop, an FAA inspector discovered that the airplane was substantially damaged. Inspection by the FAA inspector also revealed that the right wing forward spar was buckled, and the vertical stabilizer was bent approximately 45-degrees to the right.
Probable cause
The pilot's failure to maintain airplane control during the landing roll.
Verbatim NTSB analysis and probable cause from the NTSB dataset
Sources
NTSB record ATL07CA123
- Event ID
- 20071109X01774
- Case number
- ATL07CA123
- 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: 884aa3a3e7049aae34a0fe9dbfda662e61db2ac7830b80e811e4eec01a0069d8; retrieved 2026-09-22T03:30:18.264Z.