CEN15LA252 · Michael Wilson MURPHY SPIRIT
Michael Wilson MURPHY SPIRIT · Accident: loss of lift on approach
From Livingston Municipal Airport (00R) to Livingston Municipal Airport (00R)
Event
- NTSB case
- CEN15LA252
- 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
Michael Wilson MURPHY SPIRIT
- Aircraft type
- Michael Wilson MURPHY SPIRIT
- 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
- N193MW
- Operator
- Unknown
- Onboard fatalities
- Unknown
- Route
- From Livingston Municipal Airport (00R), Livingston, TXTo Livingston Municipal Airport (00R), Livingston, TX
- Aircraft age
- About 26 years (built 1989)
- 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 crosswind
- 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 lift
- 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
The private pilot reported that, during a high-speed taxi test, the amateur-built tailwheel-equipped airplane unexpectedly became airborne. He chose to continue flight rather than risk an overrun while attempting to stop on the remaining runway. When the airplane crossed trees while in the traffic pattern, it experienced a "loss of lift," and the pilot subsequently executed a landing in a field parallel to the runway. During the landing, the main landing gear collapsed, and the airplane then skidded to a stop. The pilot reported that there were no mechanical malfunctions or failures with the airplane and that the airplane and engine performed as expected. Based on the available information, it is likely that the pilot allowed the airspeed to decrease, which increased the induced drag and led to the engine not having sufficient power to overcome the drag and climb the airplane.
Probable cause
The pilot’s failure to maintain adequate airspeed, which increased the induced drag and led to the engine having insufficient power to overcome the drag and climb the airplane and resulted in a forced landing and the subsequent collapse of the main landing gear.
Verbatim NTSB analysis and probable cause from the NTSB dataset
Sources
NTSB record CEN15LA252
- Event ID
- 20150529X50010
- Case number
- CEN15LA252
- 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: 426d4b41d258ccc3d9142e0e5b0a243708678cbe75147cd4f5f4e1edbd02af4f; retrieved 2026-09-16T02:22:05.942Z.