ERA09CA442 · Rans S12 XL
Rans S12 XL · Accident: collision during takeoff/landing on approach
From Quitman Brooks County Airport (4J5) to Quitman Brooks County Airport (4J5)
Event
- NTSB case
- ERA09CA442
- 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
Rans S12 XL
- Aircraft type
- Rans S12
- 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
- N43377
- Operator
- Howard Austin
- Onboard fatalities
- Unknown
- Route
- From Quitman Brooks County Airport (4J5), Quitman, GATo Quitman Brooks County Airport (4J5), Quitman, 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
- Approach · VFR pattern final
- 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
- Collision during takeoff/landing
- 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 › Task performance
Approximate · Coordinates as recorded by the NTSB; no uncertainty radius is established.
NTSB narrative
The pilot was making an approach to landing in day visual meteorological conditions. On the final leg of the traffic pattern, the pilot descended too low and impacted trees prior to the runway. The airplane sustained substantial damage to the fuselage and wings. Neither the pilot nor a Federal Aviation Administration inspector, who examined the airplane after the accident, reported any preexisting malfunctions or mechanical anomalies. The nearest weather reporting facility, located approximately 16 nautical miles east of the accident location, reported calm winds, 10 statute miles visibility, and few clouds at 1,100 feet at the time of the accident.
Probable cause
The pilot's failure to maintain obstacle clearance on final approach.
Verbatim NTSB analysis and probable cause from the NTSB dataset
Sources
NTSB record ERA09CA442
- Event ID
- 20090805X13439
- Case number
- ERA09CA442
- 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: df126ea7f2632987dc2a48a073c37d6e0c46712aa4479ea25f27f3d366f77fcc; retrieved 2026-09-15T12:11:43.391Z.