CEN10IA173 · Univar 415-C/D
Univar 415-C/D · Incident: controlled flight into terrain/object (CFIT) on approach
From I19 · Xenia, MI to I19 · Xenia, MI
Narrative check · The NTSB narrative appears to contradict this record's departure or destination. Values are shown as recorded, not corrected; compare with the narrative.
Event
- NTSB case
- CEN10IA173
- 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
- Incident
- 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
Univar 415-C/D
- Aircraft type
- Univar 415
- 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
- N93415
- Operator
- Unknown
- Onboard fatalities
- Unknown
- Route Narrative disagrees
- From I19 · Xenia, MITo I19 · Xenia, MI
- 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
- Controlled flight into terrain/object (CFIT)
- DamageDestroyed: beyond practical repair. Substantial: damage that affects the structure, performance or handling and normally needs major repair. Minor: less than that. Glossary
- Minor
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 and passenger departed for a local flight that was to remain in the airport traffic pattern of the departure airport. The pilot stated that he climbed to pattern altitude and flew a normal downwind leg for runway 25. When he turned onto the final leg of the approach, the pilot was blinded by the sun and recognized that he was too low. He attempted a climb and felt the wing hit a tree about 100 feet from the runway approach end. He reentered the traffic pattern and landed on runway 25 without further incident. Damage to the airplane included a 2-3 inch dent in the left wing leading edge, with damage to the underlying ribs. The pilot and passenger were uninjured.
Probable cause
The pilot's failure to maintain the proper glide slope during final approach, which resulted in an in-flight collision with a tree.
Verbatim NTSB analysis and probable cause from the NTSB dataset
Sources
NTSB record CEN10IA173
- Event ID
- 20100323X43509
- Case number
- CEN10IA173
- 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: d85bcabc4f4a57ca14602710212666456a0bd4a7ce11c97cc1e64ba5aefeb065; retrieved 2026-09-15T13:47:09.485Z.