DEN08CA093 · Kitfox IV 1200
Kitfox IV 1200 · Accident: loss of control in flight during initial climb
From M02 · FlyingBar Ranch, MO to an unrecorded destination
Narrative check · The NTSB narrative appears to contradict this record's location. Values are shown as recorded, not corrected; compare with the narrative.
Event
- NTSB case
- DEN08CA093
- 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
Kitfox IV 1200
- Aircraft type
- Kitfox Iv 1200
- 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
- N108KX
- Operator
- Kennith Hiller
- Onboard fatalities
- Unknown
- Route
- From M02 · FlyingBar Ranch, MOTo 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
- Defining eventThe 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
- Tree(s)
- 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
- Personnel issues › Task performance
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 and non-rated passenger were departing the airfield on runway 24. After becoming airborne they encountered several wind gusts. The pilot failed to control the airplane causing the float-equipped airplane to catch one of the floats in the trees at the departure end of the runway. The airplane nosed over and impacted the ground. The pilot was not injured, the passenger received minor injuries, and the airplane sustained substantial damage to the fuselage frame forward of the cockpit. The pilot stated the airplane was being operated near maximum gross weight and that there was a quartering tailwind with gusts occurring during the takeoff.
Probable cause
The pilot's improper decision to takeoff with a quartering tailwind and failure to maintain aircraft control. Contributing to the accident were the gusting tailwind and operating the airplane near maximum gross weight.
Verbatim NTSB analysis and probable cause from the NTSB dataset
Sources
NTSB record DEN08CA093
- Event ID
- 20080624X00905
- Case number
- DEN08CA093
- Dataset
- full-current
- Source SHA-256
- 5cf380f0061817c0331a6b2d8cc7e0ee3a79bea469a1001dc5c10e56f35f5ab3
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: acf4f78fb1462c1409ea827ba37388e2f820a1ceb203cb0668899b9853ca1976; retrieved 2026-09-15T09:48:15.081Z.