WPR10LA103 · Larson RV8
Larson RV8 · Accident: loss of control in flight while maneuvering
From Sequim Valley Airport (W28) to Sequim Valley Airport (W28)
Event
- NTSB case
- WPR10LA103
- 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
- 2 · 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
Larson RV8
- Aircraft type
- Larson RV8
- 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
- N747CL
- Operator
- Larson Carroll B
- Onboard fatalities
- Unknown
- Route
- From Sequim Valley Airport (W28), Sequim, WATo Sequim Valley Airport (W28), Sequim, WA
- 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
- 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 in flight
- 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 purpose of the flight was to complete a flight review for the owner of the airplane. According to witnesses near the accident site, the airplane had joined the right downwind leg of the traffic pattern for the runway when it subsequently began a steep 60- to 90-degree bank to the right. After completing about one full circle, the airplane banked back to the left, pitched nose-down, and impacted terrain. The wreckage came to rest in a plowed field 1/4 mile north of the airport. Weather observations in the area during the time of the accident indicated wind from the northwest at 4 knots, visibility 10 miles and an overcast ceiling at 700 feet. Examination of the wreckage revealed extensive impact damage throughout the airframe. The forward section of the fuselage, cockpit area and associated instrumentation, were crushed aft to the main wing spar; the wreckage signatures and damage were consistent with a stall and/or spin. Examination of the airframe and engine revealed no evidence of a system malfunction or failure prior to the impact.
Probable cause
The pilot's failure to maintain adequate airspeed while maneuvering in the traffic pattern, which resulted in an aerodynamic stall.
Verbatim NTSB analysis and probable cause from the NTSB dataset
Sources
NTSB record WPR10LA103
- Event ID
- 20100108X24939
- Case number
- WPR10LA103
- 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: 76c17ee1dbd49bc8a3000c9c4839022c0de0d3b746a3ce91e84d54d5f282db7d; retrieved 2026-09-13T20:36:20.132Z.