CEN13FA446 · Campbell Earl S JR RV-6A
Campbell Earl S JR RV-6A · Accident: loss of control in flight on approach
From Richard Downing Airport (I40) to Starke County Airport (OXI)
Event
- NTSB case
- CEN13FA446
- 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
Campbell Earl S JR RV-6A
- Aircraft type
- Campbell Earl S JR RV-6
- 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
- N914ES
- Operator
- Unknown
- Onboard fatalities
- Unknown
- Route
- From Richard Downing Airport (I40), Coshocton, OHTo Starke County Airport (OXI), Knox, IN
- 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
- Approach · VFR pattern base
- 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
- Aircraft › Aircraft oper/perf/capability
- Personnel issues › Physical
Approximate · Coordinates from the NTSB case API, which marks them as estimated or does not say; no uncertainty radius is established.
NTSB narrative
The amateur-built airplane was one of a group of five airplanes traveling to a fly-in. The group planned to land at an interim stop before continuing to the fly-in the following day. The accident airplane was the fourth to land. During the approach, the airplane impacted the ground about where a base-to-final approach turn would have been expected. GPS data showed that the airplane entered a descending left turn that reached a turn rate of about 900 degrees per minute and a descent rate of about 1,300 feet per minute before impact.
The pilot of the fifth airplane and his passenger commented that the final radio transmissions over the common traffic advisory frequency (CTAF) from the accident pilot seemed out of the ordinary and that he was fumbling for words. They said that this was not common for the accident pilot and that he was usually very precise in his radio transmissions. The accident pilot's wife reported that he had complained that he was not feeling well and had chest pain 2 days before the accident flight. Reportedly, he thought the chest pain was from a pulled muscle. The wife reported that the chest pain had resolved and that the pilot was feeling better by the time of the flight but that he had not seen a physician. Autopsy findings revealed that the pilot had left ventricular hypertrophy and coronary artery disease that put him at risk for an acute cardiac event; such an event would leave no evidence visible on autopsy. In addition, the pathologist's autopsy findings stated, "While no acute ischemic changes are found, the interstitial fibrosis is consistent with prior ischemia, and cardiac hypertrophy is associated with arrhythmias…Thus, it appears possible, given the information that decedent's radio transmissions on the CTAF prior to the accident indicated he was fumbling for words, that he suffered a cardiac arrhythmia prior to the accident." Examination of the airframe and engine revealed no evidence of mechanical malfunctions or failures that would have precluded normal operation.
Probable cause
The incapacitation of the pilot due to a cardiovascular event that prevented him from maintaining control of the airplane during the landing approach.
Verbatim NTSB analysis and probable cause from the NTSB dataset
Sources
NTSB record CEN13FA446
- Event ID
- 20130730X91402
- Case number
- CEN13FA446
- 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: 0e5d91e635c1b67bf39ff686b8b5a6ff5c222d74ac01bb6c653215a094b1d300; retrieved 2026-09-14T16:01:39.206Z.