WPR10LA297 · Bernhard Vans RV8
Bernhard Vans RV8 · Accident: loss of control in flight on approach
From Truckee Tahoe Airport (TRK) to Truckee Tahoe Airport (TRK)
Event
- NTSB case
- WPR10LA297
- 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
Bernhard Vans RV8
- Aircraft type
- Bernhard VANS 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
- N901X
- Operator
- Unknown
- Onboard fatalities
- Unknown
- Route
- From Truckee Tahoe Airport (TRK), Truckee, CATo Truckee Tahoe Airport (TRK), Truckee, CA
- 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 base
- 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 from the NTSB case API, which marks them as estimated or does not say; no uncertainty radius is established.
NTSB narrative
Several ground and airborne witnesses observed the airplane maneuvering to land on runway 28. One ground witness stated that the airplane continued on the base leg for that runway beyond the point where a turn to final approach would normally begin and then made a steep left turn in an apparent turn back to the final approach. Another witness (a pilot who was taxiing after landing on runway 28) referred to this turn as a “knife edge” turn and stated that the airplane’s turn continued to steepen as the airplane dove toward the ground. An examination of the airframe and engine revealed no mechanical anomalies that would have precluded normal operation. It is likely that the pilot was attempting to compensate for overshooting the final approach and increased the bank angle to bring the airplane back to the final approach for the runway. The airplane subsequently stalled and collided with terrain.
Probable cause
The pilot's failure to maintain airplane control during a steep turn to final approach, which resulted in an inadvertent aerodynamic stall.
Verbatim NTSB analysis and probable cause from the NTSB dataset
Sources
NTSB record WPR10LA297
- Event ID
- 20100617X81429
- Case number
- WPR10LA297
- 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: 974a128a11c98c2714ed517fdb8709c4bf5d13ab581bb6fcffbafad600b53c26; retrieved 2026-09-13T20:53:16.576Z.