ERA10CA476 · Goodman Robert Bruce RV-4
Goodman Robert Bruce RV-4 · Accident: controlled flight into terrain/object (CFIT) en route
From Smith Reynolds Airport (INT) to West Georgia Regional Airport / O V Gray Field (CTJ)
Event
- NTSB case
- ERA10CA476
- 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
Goodman Robert Bruce RV-4
- Aircraft type
- Goodman Robert Bruce RV-4
- 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
- N311U
- Operator
- Unknown
- Onboard fatalities
- Unknown
- Route
- From Smith Reynolds Airport (INT), Winston Salem, NCTo West Georgia Regional Airport / O V Gray Field (CTJ), Carrollton, GA
- 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
- En route · cruise
- 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)
- Also codedOther events the NTSB coded in the sequence, such as a wire strike after a loss of power. Flight Findings uses them for its kinds of event. Glossary
- Wire
- 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
- Environmental issues › Physical environment
- Personnel issues › Action/decision
Approximate · Coordinates from the NTSB case API, which marks them as estimated or does not say; no uncertainty radius is established.
NTSB narrative
According to the pilot, while on a cross country flight he decided to descend and overfly a lake. While maneuvering over the lake with the setting sun at low level, the right main landing gear struck a marked power line, about 70 feet above the lake's surface; the right landing gear separated and broke an engine mount on the airplane. The pilot immediately turned the airplane toward a nearby airport and performed a forced landing. The left main landing gear collapsed on landing and the firewall sustained substantial damage. The pilot reported no mechanical malfunctions or failures with the airframe or engine that would have precluded normal operation. A witness stated that the power lines were marked by orange balls, while the pilot stated that the balls were red and dark. When asked how the accident could have been prevented, the pilot stated that yellow or white balls would have been easier to see.
Probable cause
The pilot's failure to see and avoid marked power lines during low-level flight over a lake.
Verbatim NTSB analysis and probable cause from the NTSB dataset
Sources
NTSB record ERA10CA476
- Event ID
- 20100914X91030
- Case number
- ERA10CA476
- 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: 7e4e6c1687cf19941ebbaa9e62130b5f45f58ca0c3139f4f654c778c9671c4d9; retrieved 2026-09-15T15:12:57.060Z.