CEN09CA563 · Halbert James H RANS S-7
Halbert James H RANS S-7 · Accident during initial climb
From Short, OK to Short, OK
Event
- NTSB case
- CEN09CA563
- 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
Halbert James H RANS S-7
- Aircraft type
- Halbert James RANS S-7
- 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
- N615JH
- Operator
- Unknown
- Onboard fatalities
- Unknown
- Route
- From Short, OKTo Short, OK
- 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
- Unknown or undetermined
- DamageDestroyed: beyond practical repair. Substantial: damage that affects the structure, performance or handling and normally needs major repair. Minor: less than that. Glossary
- Destroyed
Cause areas
- Not determined › Not determined
Approximate · Coordinates as recorded by the NTSB; no uncertainty radius is established.
NTSB narrative
The sport pilot was departing the 1,200 foot grass strip. He reported that the takeoff was normal until passing 250 feet above ground level. The engine began losing power without associated roughness or engine vibration. The pilot did not observe the gauges and focused on finding a suitable landing area. Since the airplane's flight path was toward slightly rising terrain, the pilot elected to turn the airplane toward a suitable landing area. During the turn, the airplane began losing altitude and the pilot performed a forced landing to an uncut hay field. Despite trying to keep the wings level, the left wing struck the hay first resulting in the airplane pivoting around the left wing tip. The airplane rotated 180 degrees before coming to rest in the upright position. A fire started near the lower portion of the engine and the passenger assisted with the pilot's egress prior to the airplane becoming engulfed in flames. Due to the remote location, the pilot reported that the fire response took 30 minutes. The pilot reported that the engine had operated normally prior to the accident flight without any indications of an impending failure. Thermal damage prevented a thorough investigation of the engine and the reason for the partial loss of engine power could not be determined.
Probable cause
A partial loss of engine power for undetermined reasons.
Verbatim NTSB analysis and probable cause from the NTSB dataset
Sources
NTSB record CEN09CA563
- Event ID
- 20090908X02949
- Case number
- CEN09CA563
- 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: 370efacff55a6a257f74acaa026c09f05ff7d25ec5a79c5e9cca5a8900b6fb4f; retrieved 2026-09-15T12:53:51.099Z.