CEN13LA439 · Woods Rufus III VANS RV-8A
Woods Rufus III VANS RV-8A · Accident: loss of control in flight while maneuvering
From Cimarron Municipal Airport (8K8) to Atlantic, IA
Event
- NTSB case
- CEN13LA439
- 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
- Instrument Meteorological Cond
Woods Rufus III VANS RV-8A
- Aircraft type
- Woods Rufus Iii VANS RV-8A
- 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
- N131RP
- Operator
- Unknown
- Onboard fatalities
- Unknown
- Route
- From Cimarron Municipal Airport (8K8), Larned, KSTo Atlantic, IA
- Aircraft age
- About 4 years (built 2009)
- 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
- Maneuvering
- 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
- Destroyed
Cause areas
- Personnel issues › Psychological
- Personnel issues › Task performance
Approximate · Coordinates as recorded by the NTSB; no uncertainty radius is established.
NTSB narrative
The noninstrument-rated pilot was flying the accident airplane in a trail formation behind another airplane as the airplanes maneuvered between cloud layers about 7,500 feet mean sea level. The lead airplane pilot estimated that the cloud layers were at least 4,000 feet above and 1,000 feet below the airplanes and that visibility was about 4 to 5 miles. While en route, the accident pilot lost sight of the lead airplane and asked the lead pilot to relay his heading. The lead pilot reported his heading and indicated that he saw the accident airplane about 1 mile behind and 800 feet below the lead airplane (about 200 feet above the lower cloud layer). Shortly after, the accident pilot again asked for the lead airplane's heading, and the lead pilot reported his altitude but could not visually acquire the accident airplane. No further radio transmissions were received from the accident pilot. A witness reported hearing the airplanes circling overhead, the sound of impact, and then one airplane flying overhead. He added that the weather was rain and low clouds. Ground scar and airplane damage were consistent with the accident airplane impacting terrain in a 60-degree left turn at high speed.
The accident pilot's last aviation medical examination occurred about 11 1/2 years before the accident. On the medical application, the pilot reported that he was being treated for coronary artery disease. This medical certificate was not valid for any class 2 years later, and no record was found indicating whether the pilot had obtained another medical certificate. The condition of the pilot's body did not allow for a thorough autopsy, and medical impairment could not be determined. Due to the airplane's last known proximity to a cloud layer, it is likely that the pilot was attempting to visually acquire the other airplane while he descended into a cloud layer. The pilot's inadvertent and unexpected entry into instrument meteorological conditions likely resulted in his spatial disorientation and subsequent loss of airplane control.
Probable cause
The noninstrument-rated pilot's inadvertent entry into instrument meteorological conditions, which resulted in his spatial disorientation and a subsequent loss of airplane control.
Verbatim NTSB analysis and probable cause from the NTSB dataset
Sources
NTSB record CEN13LA439
- Event ID
- 20130728X71223
- Case number
- CEN13LA439
- 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: 6efb99815dba672809cac40780f5b8ec3eebf83a8c8144e025d28926502214ce; retrieved 2026-09-14T16:01:30.185Z.