CEN14LA305 · Bollinger Robert L BD 4 UNDESIGNAT
Bollinger Robert L BD 4 UNDESIGNAT · Accident: part(s) separation from aircraft during initial climb
From Fairfield Municipal Airport (KFFL) to Fairfield Municipal Airport (KFFL)
Event
- NTSB case
- CEN14LA305
- 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
Bollinger Robert L BD 4 UNDESIGNAT
- Aircraft type
- Bollinger Robert BD-4
- 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
- N108BC
- Operator
- Bollinger Robert L
- Onboard fatalities
- Unknown
- Route
- From Fairfield Municipal Airport (KFFL), Fairfield, IATo Fairfield Municipal Airport (KFFL), Fairfield, IA
- Aircraft age
- About 15 years (built 1999)
- 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
- Initial climb
- 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
- Destroyed
Cause areas
- Aircraft › Aircraft propeller/rotor
- Not determined › Not determined
Approximate · Coordinates from the NTSB case API, which marks them as estimated or does not say; no uncertainty radius is established.
NTSB narrative
A witness reported seeing the airplane take off, make a 90-degree left turn, descend, and subsequently collide with terrain about 600 ft east of the runway. A postimpact fire ensued. During the examination of the accident site, all of the airplane's structure was found except for the propeller blades. The day after the accident, the airport manager found two of the three propeller blades while he was mowing grass. Photographs of the two propeller blades showed damage consistent with the in-flight separation of the blades. Neither blade exhibited impact or thermal damage. The breaks at the hub were not bent but pulled straight out. The reason for the in-flight separation of the propeller blades could not be determined.
Probable cause
The pilot’s loss of airplane control due to the in-flight separation of the propeller blades for reasons that could not be determined based on the available evidence.
Verbatim NTSB analysis and probable cause from the NTSB dataset
Sources
NTSB record CEN14LA305
- Event ID
- 20140622X94018
- Case number
- CEN14LA305
- 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: 6c2cb6e61edf723ff2326cb9844315b6b3cf3f0d22ef2f4f3da5b21a666aef47; retrieved 2026-09-14T17:20:19.253Z.