CEN15LA431 · Edward M VAN Morlan RANS S-12
Edward M VAN Morlan RANS S-12 · Accident: aerodynamic stall/spin on approach
From Gardner Municipal Airport (K34) to Gardner Municipal Airport (K34)
Event
- NTSB case
- CEN15LA431
- 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
Edward M VAN Morlan RANS S-12
- Aircraft type
- Edward M Van Morlan RANS S-12
- 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
- N98ES
- Operator
- Unknown
- Onboard fatalities
- Unknown
- Route
- From Gardner Municipal Airport (K34), Gardner, KSTo Gardner Municipal Airport (K34), Gardner, KS
- Aircraft age
- About 2 years (built 2013)
- 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
- 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
- Aerodynamic stall/spin
- 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
Approximate · Coordinates as recorded by the NTSB; no uncertainty radius is established.
NTSB narrative
The pilot stated that, shortly after departure, the engine experienced a loss of power, and he maneuvered the airplane for a forced landing. A witness observed the airplane pitch up, stall, and roll into a spin before impacting terrain in a near-vertical attitude. A postaccident examination of the airplane found that fuel delivery to the engine was restricted by grease in the fuel tanks. It is likely that the engine was starved of fuel due to the grease contamination, which led to the loss of power. However, the pilot did not subsequently maintain the airplane's airspeed and angle-of-attack as he maneuvered for the forced landing, and the airplane experienced an aerodynamic stall.
Probable cause
The pilot's inadequate airspeed control and the airplane’s exceedance of its critical angle-of-attack during the forced landing, which resulted in an aerodynamic stall. Contributing to the accident was the loss of engine power due to fuel starvation caused by contaminants in the fuel tank.
Verbatim NTSB analysis and probable cause from the NTSB dataset
Sources
NTSB record CEN15LA431
- Event ID
- 20150929X20812
- Case number
- CEN15LA431
- 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: 3c639cc2b3b5a9097c9a5aff8786017d52e40da366a3136d16140a887ef51bae; retrieved 2026-09-16T02:50:07.239Z.