CEN17FA342 · Rans Inc S-6
Rans Inc S-6 · Accident: low altitude operation/event while maneuvering
From Burg Lake Aero Airport (30TX) to Burg Lake Aero Airport (30TX)
Event
- NTSB case
- CEN17FA342
- 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
Rans Inc S-6
- Aircraft type
- Rans S-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
- N112CD
- Operator
- Unknown
- Onboard fatalities
- Unknown
- Route
- From Burg Lake Aero Airport (30TX), Stonewall, TXTo Burg Lake Aero Airport (30TX), Stonewall, TX
- Aircraft age
- About 16 years (built 2001)
- 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
- 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
- Low altitude operation/event
- 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 as recorded by the NTSB; no uncertainty radius is established.
NTSB narrative
The private pilot and a passenger were conducting a local personal flight. Based on witness statements, the airplane was performing aerobatic maneuvers, including steep climbs and descents and sharp turns. Following one 90° climb followed by a "pivot" and a nearly vertical descent, the witness lost sight of the airplane behind trees and then saw a plume of dust rise above the trees. Another witness reported seeing the airplane "free fall again, nose first," but this time the airplane did not pull up. About a quart of fuel was found in each fuel tank; however, fuel was found in the fuel lines from the fuel tanks to the carburetors, and fuel likely leaked out of the fuel tanks while the wreckage was inverted at the accident site. The composite propeller exhibited little rotational damage likely due to the throttle being at the idle position during ground impact. Examination of the wreckage revealed no preexisting conditions that would have precluded normal operation.
Probable cause
The pilot's failure to maintain terrain clearance while conducting aerobatic flight maneuvers with insufficient altitude to recover.
Verbatim NTSB analysis and probable cause from the NTSB dataset
Sources
NTSB record CEN17FA342
- Event ID
- 20170910X14555
- Case number
- CEN17FA342
- 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: 6af03d1659918a422ef2405402e2d9d38e58960cfcf19e17f97cdd1e1f07eefe; retrieved 2026-09-15T06:16:14.212Z.