ERA15WA233 · Vans RV8
Vans RV8 and Vans RV-7 · Accident: midair collision while maneuvering
Event
- NTSB case
- ERA15WA233
- 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
- Unknown · led by another country; figures from NTSB notifications
- 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
Aircraft 1 · Vans RV8
- Aircraft type
- Vans RV8
- 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
- I-LOVI
- Operator
- Ricci
- Onboard fatalities
- Unknown
- Route
- From CorropoliTo Corropoli
- 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
- Non-U.S., Non-Commercial
- 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
- Maneuvering · aerobatics
- 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
- Midair collision
- DamageDestroyed: beyond practical repair. Substantial: damage that affects the structure, performance or handling and normally needs major repair. Minor: less than that. Glossary
- Destroyed
Aircraft 2 · Vans RV-7
- Aircraft type
- Vans RV-7
- 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
- I-AMEL
- Operator
- Franceschetti
- Onboard fatalities
- Unknown
- Route
- From CorropoliTo Corropoli
- 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
- Non-U.S., Non-Commercial
- 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
- Maneuvering · aerobatics
- 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
- Midair collision
- 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
No findings designated as a cause are recorded in the NTSB data yet.
Approximate · Coordinates as recorded by the NTSB; no uncertainty radius is established.
NTSB narrative
On May 31, 2015, about 1430 universal coordinated time, a Vans RV8, I-LOVI, and a Vans RV7, I-AMEL, were destroyed after colliding midair and then subsequently colliding with the Adriatic Sea, near Corropoli, Italy. The Italian certificated pilot of the RV8 was fatally injured, and the Italian certificated pilot of the RV7 sustained minor injuries. The local flight departed Corropoli, Italy as part of an airshow, at an unknown time..According to investigators, the airplanes were performing formation flight in what was described as a "mirror formation" at the time of the collision. The RV8 appeared to "lose height" before it struck the RV7, broke up in flight, and fell to the sea. The RV7 performed a forced landing to the sea, and the pilot egressed the airplane with minor injuries.
This accident investigation is under the jurisdiction of the Agenzia Nazionale per la Sicurezza del Volo (ANSV) of Italy. Any further information pertaining to this accident may be obtained from:
Agenzia Nazionale per la Sicurezza del Volo Via A. Benigni, 53-00156 Telephone: +39 06 82 078 229 Fax: +39 06 8273672
This report is for informational purposes only, and contains only information released by or obtained from the Government of Italy.
Verbatim NTSB factual narrative from the NTSB dataset
Sources
NTSB record ERA15WA233
- Event ID
- 20150605X50246
- Case number
- ERA15WA233
- 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.
- No bulk values were replaced by the NTSB case API.
- The date is the local date, which is the same as the UTC date the NTSB stores.
- API snapshot SHA-256: 6a93be78c6567ba1a5bf3b9a45068c2f76daf98d325c7bdf929d770263b8d430; retrieved 2026-09-13T18:08:18.880Z.