CEN09LA311 · Thornton RV-6A
Thornton RV-6A · Accident: loss of control in flight during initial climb
From Plainwell Municipal Airport (61D) to Elkhart, IN
Event
- NTSB case
- CEN09LA311
- 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
- 2 · 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
Thornton RV-6A
- Aircraft type
- Thornton 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
- N39JT
- Operator
- Jerry D. Thornton · private individual
- Onboard fatalities
- Unknown
- Route
- From Plainwell Municipal Airport (61D), Plainwell, MITo Elkhart, IN
- 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
- Destroyed
Cause areas
- Aircraft › Aircraft oper/perf/capability
- Personnel issues › Task performance
Approximate · Coordinates as recorded by the NTSB; no uncertainty radius is established.
NTSB narrative
Several witnesses reported observing the airplane shortly after takeoff flying and executing a number of turns. Prior to impact with terrain, the airplane "barely cleared the trees" and entered a steep left bank. The accident site revealed the left wing impacted terrain and the airplane came to rest upright. A postimpact fire consumed the airplane. Examination of airframe and engine revealed no anomalies that would have precluded normal operation prior to the accident. Each pilot had autopsy evidence of coronary artery disease and a previous heart attack, though it is possible that either or both were not aware of their heart disease. The pilot also had a history of a partial lung obstruction and glaucoma, neither of which appeared to have been causing symptoms or was likely to have affected his performance on the day of the accident. In addition, the pilot-rated passenger had recently ingested a medication containing an over-the-counter sedating antihistamine. The investigation, however, could not determine whether impairment or incapacitation affected either pilot.
Probable cause
The pilot's failure to maintain aircraft control for undetermined reasons.
Verbatim NTSB analysis and probable cause from the NTSB dataset
Sources
NTSB record CEN09LA311
- Event ID
- 20090522X23017
- Case number
- CEN09LA311
- 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: 306234147228a6d06525d544e8999de5773853d490a191879b688e2dec717229; retrieved 2026-09-13T20:08:23.891Z.