CEN10CA304 · Bordelon Kitfox IV
Bordelon Kitfox IV · Accident on approach
From Stanton Airfield (KSYN) to Stanton Airfield (KSYN)
Event
- NTSB case
- CEN10CA304
- 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
Bordelon Kitfox IV
- Aircraft type
- Bordelon 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
- N396BK
- Operator
- Unknown
- Onboard fatalities
- Unknown
- Route
- From Stanton Airfield (KSYN), Stanton, MNTo Stanton Airfield (KSYN), Stanton, MN
- 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
- Miscellaneous/other
- 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 propeller/rotor
- Personnel issues › Task performance
Approximate · Coordinates from the NTSB case API, which marks them as estimated or does not say; no uncertainty radius is established.
NTSB narrative
The accident occurred during the first flight since the experimental amateur-built airplane had been repaired from a previous accident. The pilot stated that after departure he performed two landings without incident. On the third landing attempt, the in-flight electrically adjustable propeller went into a low/flat pitch while the airplane was on an extended final approach. The pilot stated that the airplane lost forward thrust as result of the flat propeller blade pitch and that he landed short of the turf runway. The airplane subsequently nosed over and came to rest inverted; the fuselage and empennage were substantially damaged. The pilot reported that there were no preimpact mechanical malfunctions or failures that would have precluded normal operation of the airplane. He stated that the flat propeller pitch may have been inadvertently set during flight when he mistakenly depressed the propeller pitch selector instead of the intended push-to-talk button. Both buttons were collocated on the control stick.
Probable cause
The pilot’s inadvertent propeller blade pitch change and subsequent loss of forward thrust.
Verbatim NTSB analysis and probable cause from the NTSB dataset
Sources
NTSB record CEN10CA304
- Event ID
- 20100607X64311
- Case number
- CEN10CA304
- 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, coordinates. 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: 8ccce59d16b9832c6d7d4865d65e17baecc5fb10fdf86c0beaecfc9ddf5ac32f; retrieved 2026-09-15T14:23:20.224Z.