DCA12CA023 · University OF Kansas MERIDIAN
University OF Kansas MERIDIAN · Accident: aerodynamic stall/spin on approach
From NZPG · McMurdo to NZPG · McMurdo
Narrative check · The NTSB narrative appears to contradict this record's date. Values are shown as recorded, not corrected; compare with the narrative.
Event
- NTSB case
- DCA12CA023
- 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
- Event fatalities
- Unknown
- 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
University OF Kansas MERIDIAN
- Aircraft type
- University Of Kansas MERIDIAN
- 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
- UNREG
- Operator
- University of Kansas
- Onboard fatalities
- Unknown
- Route
- From NZPG · McMurdoTo NZPG · McMurdo
- 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
- Non-U.S., Non-Commercial
- 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
- 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
- Aerodynamic stall/spin
- 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
Approximate · Coordinates as recorded by the NTSB; no uncertainty radius is established.
NTSB narrative
On December 20, 2011, at 1517 local time (0317, December 19, Coordinated Universal Time (UTC)), an experimental Meridian unmanned aerial system (UAS), built, owned, and operated by the University of Kansas under a National Science Foundation grant, crashed on final approach to the Pegasus Ice Runway at McMurdo Station, Antarctica. The aircraft was substantially damaged, and there were no injuries or ground damage.
The aircraft was returning from a flight test in which the airplane was controlled via an over-the-horizon satellite (Iridium) control link. Approximately 60 seconds prior to the accident, the pilot took over direct control of the aircraft via 72MHz radio control (similar to a model airplane). On final approach, as the aircraft was commanded low power and nose down pitch, the aircraft lost the 72MHz link, and as programmed the flight control system switched to an autopilot Manual (Assisted) mode. The Manual (Assisted) mode commanded the aircraft to predefined “failsafe” settings of 100 knots airspeed and neutral controls, resulting in about 27 degrees of nose up pitch change. After about one second, the control mode was changed from the failsafe setting to the Home mode, which was inadvertently left latched due to a functionality test earlier in the flight. The Home mode commanded the airplane to climb toward the home waypoint, which was over the runway, and enter an orbit. The airplane was well below the home altitude and at low airspeeds for approach. The command resulted in a power-on stall and steep nose down descent. Radio control link was re-established but too late to recover from the stall. The airplane impacted the ice runway and was substantially damaged.
Probable cause
an aerodynamic stall induced by an inadvertent autopilot Home command. The Home command was entered following a loss of the direct radio link due to improperly set failsafe settings, and an unintentional latching of Home mode from an earlier functionality test.
Verbatim NTSB analysis and probable cause from the NTSB dataset
Sources
NTSB record DCA12CA023
- Event ID
- 20111228X81723
- Case number
- DCA12CA023
- 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 UTC date the NTSB stores; the local time zone is not recorded, so the local date may differ by a day.
- API snapshot SHA-256: d14eb2be2cecb0fb9f98dd087902062c4098470272f5307bdb8721f338636a35; retrieved 2026-09-15T17:01:47.261Z.