ERA09LA057 · Campbell Earl S JR RV-6A
Campbell Earl S JR RV-6A and Getgood G Fraser VANS RV-8A · Accident: ground collision while taxiing
Event
- NTSB case
- ERA09LA057
- 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
Aircraft 1 · Campbell Earl S JR RV-6A
- Aircraft type
- Campbell Earl S JR 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
- N914ES
- Operator
- Unknown
- Onboard fatalities
- Unknown
- Route
- From Shannon Airport (EZF), Fredericksburg, VATo Cambridge Dorchester Airport (CGE), Cambridge, MD
- 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
- Taxi · from runway
- 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
- Ground collision
- DamageDestroyed: beyond practical repair. Substantial: damage that affects the structure, performance or handling and normally needs major repair. Minor: less than that. Glossary
- Minor
Aircraft 2 · Getgood G Fraser VANS RV-8A
- Aircraft type
- Getgood G Fraser VANS RV-8A
- 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
- N88FG
- Operator
- Unknown
- Onboard fatalities
- Unknown
- Route
- From Shannon Airport (EZF), Fredericksburg, VATo Cambridge Dorchester Airport (CGE), Cambridge, MD
- 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
- Not recorded
- 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
- Not recorded
- 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 systems
Approximate · Coordinates as recorded by the NTSB; no uncertainty radius is established.
NTSB narrative
Following an uneventful flight and landing at the destination, the RV-6A was following the RV-8A to the parking area. The RV-8A parked first, and the pilot of the RV-6A planned to park his airplane immediately to the right of the RV-8A. As the RV-6A approached the stationary RV-8A from the right and perpendicular to the RV-8A, the RV-6A pilot applied right brake in order to turn the airplane into the intended parking spot. The brake "failed totally," and the right wing and propeller of the RV-6A struck the other airplane, resulting in substantial damage to both airplanes. Examination of the o-ring between the main brake housing and the piston on the right wheel brake assembly revealed that it was dimensionally different than a newly manufactured o-ring, due to damage induced by excessive heat.
Probable cause
The failure of the RV-6A's right brake assembly o-ring due to excessive heat.
Verbatim NTSB analysis and probable cause from the NTSB dataset
Sources
NTSB record ERA09LA057
- Event ID
- 20081117X62306
- Case number
- ERA09LA057
- 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. 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: 37840fa5d2000410c803cb30bf796801a198a93c723f9fd573526d2cdcb2fc5b; retrieved 2026-09-13T18:14:51.974Z.