CEN15CA159 · Arnold ZODIAC CH 650
Arnold ZODIAC CH 650 · Accident: loss of control on ground during landing
From Greeley–Weld County Airport (GXY) to Greeley–Weld County Airport (GXY)
Event
- NTSB case
- CEN15CA159
- 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
Arnold ZODIAC CH 650
- Aircraft type
- Arnold ZODIAC CH 650
- 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
- N715AK
- Operator
- Unknown
- Onboard fatalities
- Unknown
- Route
- From Greeley–Weld County Airport (GXY), Greeley, COTo Greeley–Weld County Airport (GXY), Greeley, CO
- Aircraft age
- About 3 years (built 2012)
- 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 · landing roll
- 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 on ground
- 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
- Environmental issues › Physical environment
- Personnel issues › Action/decision
Approximate · Coordinates as recorded by the NTSB; no uncertainty radius is established.
NTSB narrative
The pilot had recently purchased the experimental amateur-built airplane. He was flying with a flight instructor to gain flight experience in the airplane. The pilot reported that he had made a normal left hand pattern and approach to the runway. During the flare, he attempted to maneuver the airplane to the right using aileron and right rudder inputs. The pilot said that the rudder would not move and he focused on the rudder problem. The airplane rolled out on the runway in a "sideways motion," the nose landing gear collapsed, and the airplane came to rest nose down on the runway. After exiting the airplane, the pilot and instructor observed an auxiliary electrical plug had lodged behind the right rudder pedal and had jammed it. The pilot indicated that there were no airplane mechanical malfunctions. The flight instructor's safety recommendation, in part, stated, "This could have been prevented by stowing all movable items before and during flight to keep them away from the flight controls."
Probable cause
The pilot was unable to maintain directional control during the landing due to the foreign object that lodged behind the rudder.
Verbatim NTSB analysis and probable cause from the NTSB dataset
Sources
NTSB record CEN15CA159
- Event ID
- 20150303X93218
- Case number
- CEN15CA159
- 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: 61fbebf48f182bbe7dfa1f699322ec50a9ee0aefe2b394bfdeda8003a06f5258; retrieved 2026-09-16T02:07:26.675Z.