ERA09LA231 · Howard William C KR-2
Howard William C KR-2 · Accident: fire/smoke (non-impact) en route
From Valdosta Regional Airport (VLD) to Valdosta Regional Airport (VLD)
Event
- NTSB case
- ERA09LA231
- 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
Howard William C KR-2
- Aircraft type
- Howard William KR-2
- 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
- N456CH
- Operator
- Unknown
- Onboard fatalities
- Unknown
- Route
- From Valdosta Regional Airport (VLD), Valdosta, GATo Valdosta Regional Airport (VLD), Valdosta, 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
- En route · cruise
- 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
- Fire/smoke (non-impact)
- DamageDestroyed: beyond practical repair. Substantial: damage that affects the structure, performance or handling and normally needs major repair. Minor: less than that. Glossary
- Destroyed
Cause areas
- Not determined › Not determined
Approximate · Coordinates from the NTSB case API, which marks them as estimated or does not say; no uncertainty radius is established.
NTSB narrative
The experimental amateur-built airplane was on its third flight, which was the first flight for the pilot/owner. About 20 minutes after departure, the pilot reported to air traffic control (ATC) that he had smoke in the cockpit and was approximately 9 miles from the airport. Subsequently, the pilot notified ATC that he had a fire in the cockpit. No further communications were received from the pilot and the airplane descended into trees. The airplane structure, which was comprised of wood and foam/fiberglass, exhibited extensive fire damage and was consumed by both in-flight and postimpact fire. The two previous flights were conducted by another pilot, who reported after the second flight there had been a blue staining around the fuel valve for the 15-gallon header tank. The accident pilot had installed a cigarette lighter in the airplane about 1 week prior to the accident; however, it could not be determined where the lighter was installed or if the leaking fuel valve was repaired. Due to the extensive fire damage, the fire's ignition source was not located.
Probable cause
An in-flight fire for undetermined reasons.
Verbatim NTSB analysis and probable cause from the NTSB dataset
Sources
NTSB record ERA09LA231
- Event ID
- 20090404X04529
- Case number
- ERA09LA231
- 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: 223de651cd427866297e3d6412840e273a1b8c4449b00ed2da1ced0f65405a96; retrieved 2026-09-13T20:01:52.776Z.