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CEN14LA447 · Herder Michael ZODIAC 601 HD

21 Aug 2014 · Fredericksburg, TX, United States

Saavy Biz Herder Michael ZODIAC 601 HD · Accident: loss of control in flight on approach

From Hamilton Municipal Airport (KMNZ) to Gillespie County Airport (T82)

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Event

NTSB case
CEN14LA447
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

Herder Michael ZODIAC 601 HD

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
N318MH
Operator
Saavy Biz
Onboard fatalities
Unknown
Route
From Hamilton Municipal Airport (KMNZ), Hamilton, TXTo Gillespie County Airport (T82), Fredericksburg, TX
Aircraft age
About 4 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
Approach · VFR pattern final
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
Substantial

Cause areas

  • Aircraft › Aircraft oper/perf/capability
  • Personnel issues › Task performance

Approximate · Coordinates from the NTSB case API, which marks them as estimated or does not say; no uncertainty radius is established.

NTSB narrative

After a cross-country flight and as the pilot approached his destination airport, he checked the wind. After flying a normal traffic pattern for runway 14, he made two unsuccessful landing attempts. On the third attempt, the airplane experienced a wind gust, and the airplane banked 90 degrees. The pilot applied power; however, the left wing impacted the runway. The airplane cartwheeled twice and then came to rest inverted next to the runway. There were no reported malfunctions with the airplane before the accident. A review of the airport's automated weather reporting station report indicated that, about the time of the accident, the airplane would have experienced about a 15-knot crosswind gusting to 20 knots. The accident is consistent with a loss of control during windy conditions.

Probable cause

The pilot’s loss of airplane control during a gusting crosswind landing.

Verbatim NTSB analysis and probable cause from the NTSB dataset

Sources

NTSB record CEN14LA447
Event ID
20140822X95940
Case number
CEN14LA447
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: 59d2a0898196687efce1409d1f05990ade06b642a71f487824faefe17ace8fcd; retrieved 2026-09-16T01:40:28.370Z.