ERA16LA179 · Taylorcraft BC12 D
Taylorcraft BC12 D · Accident: loss of control in flight on approach
From Raleigh Regional Airport at Person County (TDF) to Moorefield's Airstrip (VA27)
Event
- NTSB case
- ERA16LA179
- 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
Taylorcraft BC12 D
- Aircraft type
- Taylorcraft BC12
- 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
- N43363
- Operator
- Unknown
- Onboard fatalities
- Unknown
- Route
- From Raleigh Regional Airport at Person County (TDF), Roxboro, NCTo Moorefield's Airstrip (VA27), Critz, VA
- Aircraft age
- About 70 years (built 1946)
- 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
- 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 was on a cross-country pleasure flight and returning to the airplane's home base. Upon arriving at the destination, he flew over the runway and noted that the wind was from the southwest between 7 and 8 kts. He entered the airport traffic pattern on the downwind leg for runway 19, then turned onto the base and final legs. While on final approach and flying between 10 and 15 ft above ground level, the airplane suddenly veered to the left. The pilot added partial power and the engine responded; however, the airplane clipped a tree, then impacted the ground. The pilot indicated that there was no preimpact failure or malfunction of the engine or airplane and that the airplane was above stall speed when it veered to the left.
However, data downloaded from the GPS receiver indicated that the pilot allowed the airplane to slow near its stall speed. Therefore, it is likely that the pilot exceeded the airplane's critical angle of attack and the airplane experienced an aerodynamic stall.
Probable cause
The pilot’s failure to maintain airspeed while on final approach, 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 ERA16LA179
- Event ID
- 20160509X95319
- Case number
- ERA16LA179
- 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: efb7e1ab63625654aa56dedaf405e9fefd48ff68c2c8215557a0d5e7ccaceffb; retrieved 2026-09-16T03:22:03.748Z.