ERA10CA352 · Vans RV8
Vans RV8 · Accident: loss of control on ground during landing
From Spruce Creek Airport (7FL6) to Spruce Creek Airport (7FL6)
Event
- NTSB case
- ERA10CA352
- 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
Vans RV8
- Aircraft type
- 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
- N801RG
- Operator
- Robert L. Gandt · private individual
- Onboard fatalities
- Unknown
- Route
- From Spruce Creek Airport (7FL6), Port Orange, FLTo Spruce Creek Airport (7FL6), Port Orange, FL
- 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
- Landing · landing roll
- 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 on ground
- 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 pilot/owner of the tailwheel-equipped airplane stated that he was conducting touch-and-go landings at the conclusion of a 30-minute local pleasure flight. he noted that the first two landings were normal, and the third touchdown was "smooth." As the pilot lowered the tailwheel, the airplane veered to the left. The pilot corrected, and the airplane made "an abrupt swerve to the right." The left main landing gear collapsed and the airplane came to rest upright in grass off the right edge of the runway. The left wing sustained substantial damage, and closer inspection of the airplane revealed that the left undercarriage outboard attachment bracket had fractured. Examination of the bracket at the NTSB Materials Laboratory indicated that the fracture was the result of overstress. In a subsequent interview, the pilot stated that he typically wore a parachute while flying, but was not wearing one during the accident flight. He stated that the absence of the parachute placed him further from the controls than he was accustomed, and that he was unable to move the rudder pedals through their full range of motion. The pilot stated that there were no deficiencies in the performance or handling of the airplane.
Probable cause
The pilot's failure to maintain directional control during the landing rollout.
Verbatim NTSB analysis and probable cause from the NTSB dataset
Sources
NTSB record ERA10CA352
- Event ID
- 20100711X02917
- Case number
- ERA10CA352
- 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: 30054aa5f784c5e281c9896efb22952f1330dad5531356c102035273472fb312; retrieved 2026-09-15T14:40:27.513Z.