ERA09CA422 · Dart GW
Dart GW · Accident: loss of control on ground during landing
From Warrenton Fauquier Airport (HWY) to Warrenton Air Park (7VG0)
Event
- NTSB case
- ERA09CA422
- 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
Dart GW
- Aircraft type
- Dart GW
- 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
- N20930
- Operator
- Justin Currier
- Onboard fatalities
- Unknown
- Route
- From Warrenton Fauquier Airport (HWY), Midland, VATo Warrenton Air Park (7VG0), Warrenton, VA
- 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
- Landing · landing roll
- 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 on ground
- 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 oper/perf/capability
- Personnel issues › Action/decision
Approximate · Coordinates as recorded by the NTSB; no uncertainty radius is established.
NTSB narrative
The certificated private pilot performed a "normal" landing at 60 miles per hour and the tail-wheel-equipped airplane continued for approximately 600 to 700 feet on the 2,215 foot-long by 70-foot-wide turf runway, before it drifted to the right. The pilot was unable to correct the drift with left rudder and left brake before the airplane departed the runway, and struck trees at approximately "30 miles per hour." When asked how the accident could have been prevented, the pilot stated he should have kept the control stick fully back during the landing roll, and that the wet grass condition significantly decreased surface friction available for braking and steering effectiveness. Calm winds were reported 5 nautical miles southeast of the airport. Examination of the airplane by a Federal Aviation Administration inspector did not reveal any evidence of preimpact mechanical malfunctions.
Probable cause
The pilot's failure to maintain directional control during the landing roll. Contributing to the accident was the wet turf landing surface.
Verbatim NTSB analysis and probable cause from the NTSB dataset
Sources
NTSB record ERA09CA422
- Event ID
- 20090726X31946
- Case number
- ERA09CA422
- 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: f9d97263241039bee615685f7c064480daa9b3a26ff0a529c57bcc0d73936e3f; retrieved 2026-09-15T12:02:00.582Z.