CEN12LA488 · Joseph C. Andrews, Jr. Vans RV-4
Joseph C. Andrews, Jr. Vans RV-4 and Harold H. Smith Vans · Accident: collision during takeoff/landing
Event
- NTSB case
- CEN12LA488
- 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
- 1 · 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
Aircraft 1 · Joseph C. Andrews, Jr. Vans RV-4
- Aircraft type
- Joseph C Andrews JR VANS
- 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
- N122JA
- Operator
- Joseph C. Andrews, Jr · private individual
- Onboard fatalities
- Unknown
- Route
- From Jackson Municipal Airport (KMJQ), Jackson, MNTo Miller Field (KVTN), Valentine, NE
- 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 · landing roll
- 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
- Collision during takeoff/landing
- DamageDestroyed: beyond practical repair. Substantial: damage that affects the structure, performance or handling and normally needs major repair. Minor: less than that. Glossary
- Substantial
Aircraft 2 · Harold H. Smith Vans
- Aircraft type
- Harold H Smith VANS
- 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
- N766HS
- Operator
- Harold H. Smith · private individual
- Onboard fatalities
- Unknown
- Route
- From Jackson Municipal Airport (KMJQ), Jackson, MNTo Miller Field (KVTN), Valentine, NE
- 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 · landing roll
- 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
- Collision during takeoff/landing
- 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 › Psychological
Approximate · Coordinates as recorded by the NTSB; no uncertainty radius is established.
NTSB narrative
The accident airplanes were part of a flight of four airplanes. The first airplane, an RV-4, landed and exited the runway. The second airplane, another RV-4, landed and was in the process of turning off the runway at a runway intersection. Although the third airplane, an RV-6, had been making S-turns for spacing behind the second RV-4, he did not obtain proper separation and landed and collided with it. The fourth airplane, an RV-4, abandoned the approach, went around, and then landed uneventfully. The RV-6 pilot said he expected that the pilot of the second RV-4 would roll out to the end of the runway.
Probable cause
The RV-6 pilot's failure to monitor the location of the RV-4, resulting in the on-ground collision. Contributing to the accident was the RV-6 pilot not ensuring proper separation from the RV-4 and his expectation that the pilot of RV-4 would roll out to the end of the runway.
Verbatim NTSB analysis and probable cause from the NTSB dataset
Sources
NTSB record CEN12LA488
- Event ID
- 20120727X80121
- Case number
- CEN12LA488
- 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: 75c7e3443abfeb3f6e203d50988d7eecdee00f50b8695c7ca49692f610efc149; retrieved 2026-09-13T18:07:26.424Z.