DFW08CA006 · Vans Aircraft RV6
Vans Aircraft RV6 · Accident: partial loss of engine power (non-mechanical) during landing
From Halifax, VA (no airport) to Halifax, VA
Event
- NTSB case
- DFW08CA006
- 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 RV6
- Aircraft type
- Vans RV6
- 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
- N6RP
- Operator
- Unknown
- Onboard fatalities
- Unknown
- Route
- From Halifax, VA (no airport)To Halifax, VA
- 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 · aborted
- 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
- Partial loss of engine power (non-mechanical)
- 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 › 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 private pilot, who was also the builder of the airplane, reported that his approach speed was too high as he was attempting to land at his 1,300-foot-long private airstrip, so he elected to abort the landing. During the go-around, he applied full power and pitched the nose of the airplane up to establish a climb; however, the installed electronic propeller control sensed an over boost condition and reduced the engine power. As result of the power reduction, there was not a sufficient power to maintain altitude and as the pilot was attempting to clear obstacles, the airplane's airspeed got too slow. Subsequently, the airplane stalled and collided with trees. The pilot further stated that he had forgotten to place the electronic propeller control switch in the manual mode when he applied full power, which would have prevented the loss of power. The pilot was not injured and was able to egress from the airplane unassisted.
Probable cause
The pilot's inadvertent stall during a forced landing. A contributing factor was the pilot's failure to place the electronic prop controller in the manual mode prior to aborting the landing which resulted in a loss of engine power.
Verbatim NTSB analysis and probable cause from the NTSB dataset
Sources
NTSB record DFW08CA006
- Event ID
- 20071113X01787
- Case number
- DFW08CA006
- 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: local date, investigation status, coordinates. Values present in the bulk record are kept.
- The date is the local date; the NTSB stores the UTC date 2007-10-02.
- API snapshot SHA-256: 874f333081c543143546c4c6edc7f13a29c9989ffedbfabac83153c3a79808f1; retrieved 2026-09-22T03:22:51.742Z.