CEN11FA431 · Bosonetto THORP T-18
Bosonetto THORP T-18 · Accident: loss of control in flight on approach
From Canton-Plymouth-Mettetal Airport (1D2) to Livingston County Spencer J. Hardy Airport (OZW)
Event
- NTSB case
- CEN11FA431
- 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
Bosonetto THORP T-18
- Aircraft type
- Bosonetto THORP T-18
- 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
- N8AL
- Operator
- Unknown
- Onboard fatalities
- Unknown
- Route
- From Canton-Plymouth-Mettetal Airport (1D2), Plymouth, MITo Livingston County Spencer J. Hardy Airport (OZW), Howell, MI
- Aircraft age
- About 29 years (built 1982)
- 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
- 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 as recorded by the NTSB; no uncertainty radius is established.
NTSB narrative
The purpose of the accident flight was for the pilot to obtain a flight review in the airplane that he owned. A witness reported seeing the airplane at a higher-than-normal glidepath to the runway and traveling at a slow airspeed while in a forward-slip maneuver. (A forward slip is a flight maneuver used to increase the descent rate, while maintaining airplane pitch and airspeed.) The witness stated that, while the airplane was in the forward slip and losing altitude, it suddenly entered a right spin and descended out of his view. Another witness reported seeing the airplane yawing side-to-side as it approached the runway and then hearing the engine increase to full power as the airplane simultaneously pitched up. The airplane then nosed over and descended into his front yard. A postaccident examination of the airplane revealed no evidence of mechanical malfunctions or failures that would have precluded normal operation. The low-altitude stall/spin encountered during final approach was likely not recoverable. Toxicological testing revealed the presence of several medications in both the pilot and flight instructor; however, it is not likely that they resulted in any impairment.
Probable cause
The pilot's failure to maintain airplane control and airspeed during final approach, which resulted in an aerodynamic stall/spin at a low altitude.
Verbatim NTSB analysis and probable cause from the NTSB dataset
Sources
NTSB record CEN11FA431
- Event ID
- 20110629X23512
- Case number
- CEN11FA431
- 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: 03037ddfec93eb5e4b0a5fd77e347d961f80445230cb6a8fc18d24d4134c733c; retrieved 2026-09-13T21:29:37.262Z.