WPR13LA093 · Kaufmann VANS RV-10
Kaufmann VANS RV-10 · Accident: flight control system malfunction/failure during landing
From Reno Tahoe International Airport (RNO) to North Las Vegas Airport (VGT)
Event
- NTSB case
- WPR13LA093
- 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
Kaufmann VANS RV-10
- Aircraft type
- Kaufmann VANS RV-10
- 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
- N104BK
- Operator
- Robert Kaufmann
- Onboard fatalities
- Unknown
- Route
- From Reno Tahoe International Airport (RNO), Reno, NVTo North Las Vegas Airport (VGT), Las Vegas, NV
- 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 · flare/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
- Flight control system malfunction/failure
- 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
- Aircraft › Aircraft systems
- Personnel issues › Task performance
Approximate · Coordinates as recorded by the NTSB; no uncertainty radius is established.
NTSB narrative
The pilot, who was also the owner and builder of the airplane, reported that, while on short final, he lost elevator control and was unable to control the airplane's pitch. The pilot continued the landing, but he was unable to flare the airplane, which resulted in a hard landing. The airplane bounced once and then came back down on its nose.
Postaccident examination of the airplane revealed that the attachment bolt for the elevator control assembly was missing. The airplane manufacturer's maintenance instructions called for two washers and an elastic stop nut to secure the elevator assembly attachment bolt. It is likely that the pilot did not properly install or secure the hardware used to attach the bolt, which allowed it to release in flight and rendered the elevator control system ineffective and led to the subsequent loss of pitch control. The airplane had accumulated a total time of 48 hours.
Probable cause
A missing elevator control assembly attachment bolt, which rendered the elevator control system ineffective and resulted in a loss of pitch control, and the pilot’s incorrect installation of the elevator control assembly.
Verbatim NTSB analysis and probable cause from the NTSB dataset
Sources
NTSB record WPR13LA093
- Event ID
- 20130117X51933
- Case number
- WPR13LA093
- 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: c9225a3e432b49fdc15c426bc664d7aab766bd65cdad54fb2cfecf5151849e2e; retrieved 2026-09-15T20:45:54.316Z.