CEN10CA481 · Oliver A Bruce RV6-A
Oliver A Bruce RV6-A · Accident during takeoff
From Trenton Municipal Airport (TRX) to Ankeny Regional Airport (IKV)
Event
- NTSB case
- CEN10CA481
- 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
Oliver A Bruce RV6-A
- Aircraft type
- Oliver A Bruce RV6
- 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
- N50BU
- Operator
- Unknown
- Onboard fatalities
- Unknown
- Route
- From Trenton Municipal Airport (TRX), Trenton, MOTo Ankeny Regional Airport (IKV), Ankeny, IA
- 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
- Takeoff
- 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 structures
- Environmental issues › Operating environment
- 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 pilot reported that the cockpit canopy latch broke at the conclusion of the previous flight. The latch was welded and reinstalled prior to the accident flight. After takeoff, the repaired canopy latch failed as the airplane climbed through 50 feet above ground level (agl). The pilot attempted to land on the remaining runway due to the possibility of the canopy separating and striking the empennage in flight. However, after landing, he was unable to stop on the remaining runway and the airplane struck a ditch during the runway overrun. The nose landing gear subsequently collapsed and the airplane nosed over.
Probable cause
The canopy opening shortly after takeoff due to an inadequate repair and subsequent failure of the canopy latch, resulting in a emergency landing. Contributing to the accident was the lack of available runway remaining for the forced landing.
Verbatim NTSB analysis and probable cause from the NTSB dataset
Sources
NTSB record CEN10CA481
- Event ID
- 20100816X11015
- Case number
- CEN10CA481
- 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: a73a7c73648a9620026c3b6478e69e4abcc458c84e52c09e8f3991ba2c457502; retrieved 2026-09-15T14:51:08.085Z.