CEN09CA528 · MORSE, Frank L. KITFOX
MORSE, Frank L. KITFOX · Accident: low altitude operation/event while maneuvering
From Crawford Airport (99V) to Crawford Airport (99V)
Event
- NTSB case
- CEN09CA528
- 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
MORSE, Frank L. KITFOX
- Aircraft type
- Morse Frank KITFOX
- 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
- N39FM
- Operator
- Unknown
- Onboard fatalities
- Unknown
- Route
- From Crawford Airport (99V), Crawford, COTo Crawford Airport (99V), Crawford, CO
- 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
- Low altitude operation/event
- 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
- Environmental issues › Conditions/weather/phenomena
Approximate · Coordinates as recorded by the NTSB; no uncertainty radius is established.
NTSB narrative
The pilot was conducting aerial observation of his pipeline head gate to check for debris. He overflew the area at 150 feet above ground level (agl) and "observed a light tailwind and no downdraft." He performed a left 360 degree turn and flew over the area a second time between 50 and 60 feet agl. The airplane encountered a "severe downdraft" and settled into terrain. The right wing spar was broken in the impact, as was the right main landing gear and nosewheel. The propeller was destroyed. The pilot reported no mechanical anomalies with the airplane.
Probable cause
The pilot's continued flight into a severe downdraft at low altitude after encountering tailwind over the area.
Verbatim NTSB analysis and probable cause from the NTSB dataset
Sources
NTSB record CEN09CA528
- Event ID
- 20090817X40134
- Case number
- CEN09CA528
- 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: 8f4f4f5ed033a8bbb32749a1458a11e373cd4e20f2789ed9b4a8e5993a93886e; retrieved 2026-09-15T12:48:28.515Z.