WPR13LA174 · Vans RV12 120083
Vans RV12 120083 · Accident: part(s) separation from aircraft during landing
From Lenhardt Airpark (7S9) to Wakonda Beach State Airport (R33)
Narrative check · The NTSB narrative appears to contradict this record's departure or destination. Values are shown as recorded, not corrected; compare with the narrative.
Event
- NTSB case
- WPR13LA174
- 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
Vans RV12 120083
- Aircraft type
- Vans RV12
- 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
- N572LS
- Operator
- Levonte Yakis
- Onboard fatalities
- Unknown
- Route Narrative disagrees
- From Lenhardt Airpark (7S9), Lenhardt Airprk, ORTo Wakonda Beach State Airport (R33), Waldport, OR
- Aircraft age
- About 3 years (built 2010)
- 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
- Part(s) separation from aircraft
- 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
Approximate · Coordinates from the NTSB case API, not marked as estimated; no uncertainty radius is established.
NTSB narrative
During landing on a turf runway, the nosewheel landing gear separated. An examination of the runway surface revealed impact marks consistent with a hard landing in an almost-level attitude. A postaccident examination of the wreckage revealed no evidence of preimpact anomalies that would have precluded normal operation. Downloaded nonvolatile memory indicated that the airplane's initial touchdown was flat or slightly negative, which resulted in the nose landing gear contacting the runway surface before the main landing gear. The data also indicated that the landing occurred at a high rate of speed and that the pilot did not attempt to flare the airplane during the landing.
Probable cause
The pilot’s improper flare, which resulted in a hard landing.
Verbatim NTSB analysis and probable cause from the NTSB dataset
Sources
NTSB record WPR13LA174
- Event ID
- 20130401X55939
- Case number
- WPR13LA174
- 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, coordinates. 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: 356d9f3392da08e0b0f13128c3cb696adc81b6ff976289b6577950fe7d575bd6; retrieved 2026-09-15T21:11:55.983Z.