WPR15CA031 · SIAI Marchetti S211 A
Progenitech SIAI Marchetti S211 A · Accident: abnormal runway contact during landing
From Ramona Airport (KRNM) to Borrego Valley Airport (L08)
Event
- NTSB case
- WPR15CA031
- 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
SIAI Marchetti S211 A
- Aircraft type
- Siai Marchetti S211
- 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
- N211JY
- Operator
- Progenitech
- Onboard fatalities
- Unknown
- Route
- From Ramona Airport (KRNM), Ramona, CATo Borrego Valley Airport (L08), Borrego Valley, CA
- 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
- Landing · flare/touchdown
- 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
- Abnormal runway contact
- 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
- Personnel issues › Task performance
Approximate · Coordinates as recorded by the NTSB; no uncertainty radius is established.
NTSB narrative
The private pilot stated that the purpose of the flight was for him to receive instruction from the rear-seated flight instructor (CFI). Following departure, they flew to a nearby airport with the intent of performing touch-and-go practice takeoffs and landings. As the airplane approached the touchdown zone, the private pilot prematurely flared. The CFI assumed control of the airplane and decreased the pitch attitude while simultaneously applying engine power. Despite his attempts, the airplane contacted the runway hard in a nose-high attitude. The CFI opted to abort the landing and climbed to traffic pattern altitude to verify proper control input. He landed on the same runway without incident.
In the section titled "RECOMMENDATION" in the NTSB Pilot/Operator Report, form 6120.1/2, the pilots stated that the accident could have been prevented if they had flared closer to the runway. During the impact sequence, the airplane sustained substantial damage to the fuselage structure. Both pilots reported that there were no pre impact mechanical malfunctions or failures that would have precluded normal operation.
Probable cause
The private pilot's premature landing flare and the flight instructor's delayed remedial action, which resulted in a hard landing.
Verbatim NTSB analysis and probable cause from the NTSB dataset
Sources
NTSB record WPR15CA031
- Event ID
- 20141031X20709
- Case number
- WPR15CA031
- 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: 72eb6982eab48730daf8c3041c0c335e5dee6dc8b985eddb3aeffc10c4ecbd9f; retrieved 2026-09-16T01:54:15.517Z.