CEN16FA344 · Aves Douglas James RV 6
Aves Douglas James RV 6 · Accident: loss of control in flight
From Marv Skie / Lincoln County Airport (Y14) to Marv Skie / Lincoln County Airport (Y14)
Event
- NTSB case
- CEN16FA344
- 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
- 0
- 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
Aves Douglas James RV 6
- Aircraft type
- Aves Douglas James RV-6
- 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
- N676DT
- Operator
- Unknown
- Onboard fatalities
- Unknown
- Route
- From Marv Skie / Lincoln County Airport (Y14), TEA, SDTo Marv Skie / Lincoln County Airport (Y14), TEA, SD
- Aircraft age
- About 20 years (built 1996)
- 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
- Unknown
- 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
- Destroyed
Cause areas
- Aircraft › Aircraft oper/perf/capability
- Personnel issues › Task performance
Approximate · Coordinates as recorded by the NTSB; no uncertainty radius is established.
NTSB narrative
The commercial pilot and the passenger, his 14-year-old granddaughter who wanted to become a pilot, were making a local flight in the airplane. No radar or GPS track information was found for the flight. A witness heard the airplane's engine "sputtering" before the airplane impacted the ground in a cornfield. A postimpact fire consumed the engine cowling, cockpit, fuselage, and the forward portion of the empennage. Damage to the airplane, the crop, and marks on the ground indicated that the airplane impacted in a slightly nose-low and left-wing-low attitude with no forward airspeed, consistent with a relatively flat spin. The propeller remained attached to the engine and was embedded in the soil and positioned horizontally. The propeller blades were slightly bent aft and did not exhibit any leading-edge damage, consistent with minimal, if any, power being produced by the engine during impact. No mechanical malfunctions or anomalies were found with the engine or airframe that would have precluded normal operation. However, the examination was limited by the extensive postcrash fire damage. The circumstances of the accident are consistent with the airplane exceeding its critical angle of attack, resulting in an aerodynamic stall and subsequent flat spin into terrain. Given the witness report of a "sputtering" engine and the propeller signatures consistent with the engine not producing power at impact, it is likely that the engine lost power before impact. However, it could not be determined whether the engine lost power before the loss of control or whether the pilot intentionally reduced power during the descent.
The14-year-old passenger was seated in the left seat, and the pilot was seated in the right seat. Although the family reported that the flight was not instructional, it is possible that the pilot allowed the passenger to manipulate the flight controls. Regardless of which occupant was manipulating the flight controls, the pilot was the only certificated pilot on board and was responsible for the safety of the flight.
Probable cause
The pilot's failure to maintain airplane control, which resulted in the airplane exceeding its critical angle of attack, an aerodynamic stall, and subsequent flat spin into terrain.
Verbatim NTSB analysis and probable cause from the NTSB dataset
Sources
NTSB record CEN16FA344
- Event ID
- 20160902X31547
- Case number
- CEN16FA344
- 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: 665175178f58aa86aa6b41b5df67048e80b5670f09558d8b76975dab33ffeb01; retrieved 2026-09-14T21:59:29.333Z.