CEN09CA344 · Taylorcraft BC12-D
KMH Enterprise Taylorcraft BC12-D · Accident: loss of control in flight while maneuvering
From Afton, IA to Afton, IA
Event
- NTSB case
- CEN09CA344
- 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
Taylorcraft BC12-D
- Aircraft type
- Taylorcraft BC12
- 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
- N43524
- Operator
- KMH Enterprise
- Onboard fatalities
- Unknown
- Route
- From Afton, IATo Afton, IA
- 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
- Maneuvering · low-altitude flying
- 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
- Personnel issues › Task performance
Approximate · Coordinates as recorded by the NTSB; no uncertainty radius is established.
NTSB narrative
In his written statement the pilot wrote that he has no recollection of the events on the day of the accident. During a telephone interview he stated that he and the passenger went flying to survey farm land and cattle. He stated that they were flying at an altitude of 1,000 feet and would descend to 500 feet to look at fences. The only recollection the passenger has is that they circled his house a couple times then turned to the west. The accident occurred approximately 600 feet west of the passenger’s property. One witness reported that the airplane made several turns then headed west at an altitude of about 75 feet above the ground prior to it veering right and descending to the ground. Another witness reported the airplane flew right over her car prior to flying back and forth over a field. She stated that the airplane then made a “nose dive straight into the ground.” The airplane impacted the ground in a nose-down attitude. Inspection of the wreckage failed to reveal any preimpact failure or malfunction.
Probable cause
The pilot's failure to maintain control of the airplane while maneuvering at a low altitude.
Verbatim NTSB analysis and probable cause from the NTSB dataset
Sources
NTSB record CEN09CA344
- Event ID
- 20090609X31320
- Case number
- CEN09CA344
- 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: local date, investigation status. Values present in the bulk record are kept.
- The date is the local date; the NTSB stores the UTC date 2009-06-06.
- API snapshot SHA-256: afc1680407d9721479c7d29d7247f317a46691f080373d5e4f623889ca23f8fe; retrieved 2026-09-15T11:21:27.565Z.