CEN12LA629 · Varga Aircraft CORP. 2150A
Varga Aircraft CORP. 2150A and Great Lakes 2T-1A-2 · Accident: collision during takeoff/landing
Event
- NTSB case
- CEN12LA629
- 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
Aircraft 1 · Varga Aircraft CORP. 2150A
- Aircraft type
- Varga 2150
- 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
- N4651V
- Operator
- Unknown
- Onboard fatalities
- Unknown
- Route
- From Clinton Municipal Airport (CWI), Clinton, IATo Clinton Municipal Airport (CWI), Clinton, IA
- 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 · Great Lakes 2T-1A-2
- Aircraft type
- Great Lakes 2
- 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
- N3793F
- Operator
- Unknown
- Onboard fatalities
- Unknown
- Route
- From Davenport Municipal Airport (DVN), Davenport, IATo Clinton Municipal Airport (CWI), Clinton, IA
- 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
- Minor
Cause areas
- Personnel issues › Psychological
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 of a Great Lakes biplane was landing when the airplane struck the rear of a Varga airplane that had previously landed and was still on the runway. According to the pilot of the Great Lakes, he did not see the other airplane until the impact occurred. The Varga had completed a straight-in approach following a practice instrument approach. The Great Lakes landed using a left hand traffic pattern approach to landing. FAA regulations state that when two airplanes are approaching to land at the same airport, the airplane at the lower altitude has the right of way. The airport was a non-towered airport, and both pilots reported that they had announced their positions in the airport traffic pattern. Regulations did not prohibit the use of a straight-in approach.
Probable cause
The pilot of the other airplane failing to adequately monitor for other aircraft while landing.
Verbatim NTSB analysis and probable cause from the NTSB dataset
Sources
NTSB record CEN12LA629
- Event ID
- 20120913X40132
- Case number
- CEN12LA629
- 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: local date, investigation status, coordinates. Values present in the bulk record are kept.
- The date is the local date; the NTSB stores the UTC date 2012-09-13.
- API snapshot SHA-256: 9d6120c6241b1f08e57e82f4a0a63319756deb821a396d29c991bbc173fc3e30; retrieved 2026-09-13T18:21:47.117Z.