CEN09CA386 · Hubbell Prescott Pusher
Airdat Hubbell Prescott Pusher · Accident: part(s) separation from aircraft on approach
From St. Mary's County Regional Airport (2W6) to Rickenbacker International Airport (KLCK)
Event
- NTSB case
- CEN09CA386
- 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
Hubbell Prescott Pusher
- Aircraft type
- Hubbell PRESCOTT PUSHER
- 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
- N19PP
- Operator
- Airdat
- Onboard fatalities
- Unknown
- Route
- From St. Mary's County Regional Airport (2W6), Leonardtown, MDTo Rickenbacker International Airport (KLCK), Columbus, OH
- 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
- Approach
- 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
- Part(s) separation from aircraft
- 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 power plant
- Aircraft › Aircraft propeller/rotor
- Aircraft › Aircraft structures
Approximate · Coordinates from the NTSB case API, not marked as estimated; no uncertainty radius is established.
NTSB narrative
As the airplane approached its destination, the cabin-entry door inadvertently opened, departed the airframe, and struck the pusher-type propeller. The airplane experienced a significant loss of engine power and the pilot performed a forced landing into a nearby wheat field. The left wing was substantially damaged when the left main landing gear collapsed during landing. The amateur-built airplane was equipped with a single, gull-wing type, cabin door. The door, located on the left side of the cabin, articulated around a hinge on the top of the fuselage. The door latch-pins were designed to engage the fuselage using three capturing latch assemblies installed in the fuselage sidewall. These capturing latches functioned collectively using a single door latch handle. A post-accident inspection and testing of the fuselage-mounted latch assemblies and their common latch handle failed to reveal any anomalies or damage. All three corresponding latch-pins remained attached to the recovered door frame and appeared undamaged.
Probable cause
A partial loss of engine power due to propeller damage from being struck by the cabin-entry door, which inadvertently opened and departed the airframe for undetermined reasons during flight.
Verbatim NTSB analysis and probable cause from the NTSB dataset
Sources
NTSB record CEN09CA386
- Event ID
- 20090625X92045
- Case number
- CEN09CA386
- 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: 35bfebef674911a349677d26bbb4e66294a8fb92ee3002b1cd8b6a55d7cc41c8; retrieved 2026-09-15T11:36:34.736Z.