CEN12CA442 · Doppelt Fredric F F. 8L FALCO
Doppelt Fredric F F. 8L FALCO · Accident: loss of control in flight during takeoff
From Durango La Plata County Airport (KDRO) to Durango La Plata County Airport (KDRO)
Event
- NTSB case
- CEN12CA442
- 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
Doppelt Fredric F F. 8L FALCO
- Aircraft type
- Doppelt Fredric F-8
- 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
- N532FD
- Operator
- Bruce Snyder
- Onboard fatalities
- Unknown
- Route
- From Durango La Plata County Airport (KDRO), Durango, COTo Durango La Plata County Airport (KDRO), Durango, CO
- 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
- 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 › Action/decision
- Personnel issues › Task performance
Approximate · Coordinates as recorded by the NTSB; no uncertainty radius is established.
NTSB narrative
**This report was modified on November 19, 2013. Please see the public docket for this accident to view the original report.**
The airplane was being flown by a private pilot, who stated that he had flown the airplane with the previous owner but had not conducted any takeoffs or landings, and a flight instructor who was providing dual instruction. The pilot lost directional control of the airplane during the takeoff ground run, and the airplane subsequently became airborne at too slow of an airspeed. The pilot reduced the power to land the airplane back on the runway. The instructor stated that he told the pilot to lower the nose and to watch the airspeed then took control of the airplane. The instructor lowered the nose, and the pilot increased the power. The instructor stated that the left wing dropped as the airspeed increased, but he was able to level the wings. The right wing then dropped "very quickly," and he was not able to recover. The airplane came to rest inverted in the grass alongside the runway. The fuselage, wings, firewall, and the empennage were substantially damaged.
Probable cause
The pilot's failure to maintain control of the airplane and the instructor's delayed remedial action.
Verbatim NTSB analysis and probable cause from the NTSB dataset
Sources
NTSB record CEN12CA442
- Event ID
- 20120715X50853
- Case number
- CEN12CA442
- 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: e2b05f9539a0a521accd32924b2de17fc19d4552b95e61fa7ce99b2116047c4e; retrieved 2026-09-15T18:54:02.616Z.