ERA16FA165 · Vans RV12
Yoxford Air Vans RV12 · Accident: loss of control in flight on approach
From Easton Airport / Newnam Field (ESN) to Bay Bridge Airport (W29)
Event
- NTSB case
- ERA16FA165
- 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
- 2 · 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
Vans RV12
- Aircraft type
- Vans RV12
- 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
- N276VA
- Operator
- Yoxford Air
- Onboard fatalities
- Unknown
- Route
- From Easton Airport / Newnam Field (ESN), Easton, MDTo Bay Bridge Airport (W29), Stevensville, MD
- Aircraft age
- About 1 year (built 2015)
- 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 final
- 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 in flight
- 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
- Environmental issues › Conditions/weather/phenomena
- Personnel issues › Task performance
Approximate · Coordinates as recorded by the NTSB; no uncertainty radius is established.
NTSB narrative
The airline transport pilot of the light sport airplane was approaching the airport for landing in gusty front quartering crosswind conditions. Witnesses observed the airplane on final approach between 50 and 75 ft above ground level. The airplane's nose pitched up, followed by a roll to the right. The airplane then entered a nose-down attitude and descended to ground contact, impacting level terrain about 750 ft from the runway and slightly left of the extended runway centerline. Examination of the wreckage did not reveal any preimpact mechanical malfunctions that would have precluded normal operation.
Before the accident flight, the pilot had about 2.4 hours of experience in the accident airplane make and model but had been signed off to fly the airplane by an instructor. Witness observations of the final moments of flight are consistent with an aerodynamic stall. It is likely that the pilot failed to compensate for the gusty crosswind and turbulent conditions during the approach for landing, which resulted in an exceedance of the airplane's critical angle of attack, aerodynamic stall, and subsequent loss of control.
Probable cause
The pilot's failure to maintain airplane control during approach for landing in gusting crosswind conditions, which resulted in an exceedance of the airplane's critical angle of attack and a subsequent aerodynamic stall.
Verbatim NTSB analysis and probable cause from the NTSB dataset
Sources
NTSB record ERA16FA165
- Event ID
- 20160419X41829
- Case number
- ERA16FA165
- 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: ddfadc95e48bee48e0e76eac31b6664dee8252c0fda2a1ed5c843bf4e32a4601; retrieved 2026-09-14T21:44:36.555Z.