CEN12CA081 · Fenton DAVIS DA-2A
Fenton DAVIS DA-2A · Accident: loss of control on ground during landing
From Llano Municipal Airport (AQO) to Center Municipal Airport (F17)
Narrative check · The NTSB narrative appears to contradict this record's departure or destination. Values are shown as recorded, not corrected; compare with the narrative.
Event
- NTSB case
- CEN12CA081
- 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
Fenton DAVIS DA-2A
- Aircraft type
- Fenton DAVIS DA-2A
- 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
- N808F
- Operator
- Robert B Flannigan · private individual
- Onboard fatalities
- Unknown
- Route Narrative disagrees
- From Llano Municipal Airport (AQO), Llano Municpal, TXTo Center Municipal Airport (F17), Center, TX
- 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 · aborted after touchdown
- 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
- 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
The pilot purchased the airplane on the day of the accident and received only one hour of instruction from the previous owner prior to departing for his home airport. Prior to making his first fuel stop, the pilot received weather information from an airport 44 miles away and knew he would land with a slight crosswind. He had to abort his first two attempts to land due to turbulent and gusty wind conditions. On the third landing attempt, the airplane encountered a gust from the right just as the wheels touched down, and it was pushed toward the left side of the runway. The pilot applied full power and tried to go around, but the airplane continued to veer off the side of the runway toward a ditch. The pilot said he pulled the throttle to idle before the airplane collided with the ditch but forgot to use the hand brake, since he was not used to using a hand brake (versus toe brakes) to slow the airplane. The airplane collided with the ditch and came to rest on its nose. A postaccident examination of the airplane revealed substantial damage to the inboard section of the left wing. The pilot reported no mechanical problems with the airplane or engine and said his lack of familiarity with the airplane contributed to the accident. The closest weather facility to the accident site, which was 46 nautical miles northwest, reported wind gusting to 15 knots.
Probable cause
The pilot’s inadequate compensation for gusty, crosswind conditions while landing, which resulted in a loss of directional control. Contributing to the accident was the pilot's lack of familiarity with the airplane.
Verbatim NTSB analysis and probable cause from the NTSB dataset
Sources
NTSB record CEN12CA081
- Event ID
- 20111126X10023
- Case number
- CEN12CA081
- 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: e57fd3daabbc6d21505e5e456ecc2668b7a944a8a7f442038b90e8dfec89f99f; retrieved 2026-09-15T16:57:47.572Z.