ERA09LA043 · Miller J Kirtley RV-6
Siesta Aviation Miller J Kirtley RV-6 · Accident: loss of control in flight during initial climb
From Covington Airport (VA72) to Covington Airport (VA72)
Event
- NTSB case
- ERA09LA043
- 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
- 1 · 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
Miller J Kirtley RV-6
- Aircraft type
- Miller J Kirtley 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
- N8LK
- Operator
- Siesta Aviation
- Onboard fatalities
- Unknown
- Route
- From Covington Airport (VA72), Martinsville, VATo Covington Airport (VA72), Martinsville, 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
- 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
- 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
- Aircraft › Aircraft oper/perf/capability
- 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
After bouncing on the runway, the pilot aborted the landing and added full engine power. The airplane began to climb, yawed to the left, and struck some small tree branches on the left side of the runway. The pilot corrected back toward the right; however, as the airplane approached the right side of the runway, in a nose-high attitude, it began a slow left yaw and roll. The airplane’s left wing impacted the runway, followed by the propeller and right wing, in a near-vertical attitude. Examination of the airplane did not reveal evidence of any preimpact mechanical malfunctions. The pilot had accumulated about 800 flight hours in a similar type airplane and had landed at the airport on numerous occasions. Toxicological testing revealed that chlorpheniramine, an over-the-counter sedating antihistamine, was detected in the pilot's blood. The level was several times higher than the level expected with a typical maximum single over-the-counter dose. In typical doses, the medication has measurable adverse effects on performance of complex and cognitive and motor tasks.
Probable cause
The pilot's failure to maintain aircraft control during the initial climb after an aborted landing. Contributing to the accident was the pilot's impairment from an over-the-counter sedating antihistamine.
Verbatim NTSB analysis and probable cause from the NTSB dataset
Sources
NTSB record ERA09LA043
- Event ID
- 20081107X73638
- Case number
- ERA09LA043
- 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: 32faf159ab95128e90b07e8da48751b0115d3b0bb5a6e81fd1fbcf244e21f56a; retrieved 2026-09-13T19:48:42.258Z.