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CEN09CA498 · Rans Employee Flying Club RANS S-6S

31 Jul 2009 · Montezuma, IN, United States

Rans Employee Flying Club RANS S-6S · Accident: collision during takeoff/landing during initial climb

From Garrard Airport (9IN6) to Garrard Airport (9IN6)

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Event

NTSB case
CEN09CA498
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 Employee Flying Club RANS S-6S

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
N91226
Operator
Donald J. Garrard · private individual
Onboard fatalities
Unknown
Route
From Garrard Airport (9IN6), Montezuma, INTo Garrard Airport (9IN6), Montezuma, 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
Collision during takeoff/landing
Also codedOther events the NTSB coded in the sequence, such as a wire strike after a loss of power. Flight Findings uses them for its kinds of event. Glossary
Wire
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 departed on a local flight from his private airstrip. The pilot stated that he felt a gust of wind from the west and was not able to maintain control of the airplane. He stated that he did not anticipate the wind directional change as the wind sock was "down" when he took off. The airplane’s left wing impacted a powerline and the airplane impacted terrain. A ground fire occurred.

Probable cause

The pilot's failure to maintain aircraft control after takeoff resulting in an impact with a power line and the ground.

Verbatim NTSB analysis and probable cause from the NTSB dataset

Sources

NTSB record CEN09CA498
Event ID
20090806X13406
Case number
CEN09CA498
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: 8d5b78592f7e6fde8b91c12ce08efc03cd5fcd2a96529210cdcfb805840a618b; retrieved 2026-09-15T12:45:34.574Z.