CEN18FA126 · Rans Inc S-16 SHEKARI
Rans Inc S-16 SHEKARI · Accident: aerodynamic stall/spin on approach
From Karl Stefan Memorial Airport (OFK) to Pierce, NE (private airstrip)
Event
- NTSB case
- CEN18FA126
- 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
- 1 · 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-16 SHEKARI
- Aircraft type
- Rans S-16
- 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
- N741WT
- Operator
- Unknown
- Onboard fatalities
- Unknown
- Route
- From Karl Stefan Memorial Airport (OFK), Norfolk, NETo Pierce, NE (private airstrip)
- Aircraft age
- About 11 years (built 2007)
- 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
- Personnel issues › Task performance
Approximate · Coordinates as recorded by the NTSB; no uncertainty radius is established.
NTSB narrative
The private pilot was approaching his private airstrip in his experimental amateur-built airplane when witnesses heard the sound of the engine stop. The airplane then impacted a field about ¼ mile from the approach end of the runway. The runway's usable length was limited due to standing water and mud; thus, the approach for landing would have necessitated a low-speed, low-altitude approach with low engine power to minimize airplane energy. The wreckage path and airplane damage were consistent with a low-speed, nose-low impact.
The accident occurred about 1 hour after the pilot fueled the airplane with 16.5 gallons of 100 low-lead (LL) fuel. Postaccident examination of the fuel tank found that it contained useable fuel. No indication of water was found in the fuel.
Recorded data from the airplane' s electronic flight instrument system showed that the airplane's speed decreased below stall speed and engine operation continued until the airplane impacted terrain. The airplane was not equipped with a stall warning system, and there were no markings on airspeed instruments indicating the stall speed. Postaccident examination of the airplane revealed no mechanical anomalies that would have precluded normal operation.
The National Transportation Safety Board was unable to determine, from the available evidence, the number of hours that the pilot flew in the accident airplane make and model, which he had purchased 6 months before the accident.
Although the pilot's severe heart disease placed him at increased risk for an acute cardiac event, whether or not symptoms from such an event contributed to this accident could not be determined. Thus, the reason for the pilot's failure to maintain airspeed could not be determined.
Probable cause
The pilot's failure to maintain airspeed during the approach for landing, which resulted in an aerodynamic stall and the airplane's impact with terrain.
Verbatim NTSB analysis and probable cause from the NTSB dataset
Sources
NTSB record CEN18FA126
- Event ID
- 20180323X80643
- Case number
- CEN18FA126
- 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: 8c77e182ca8bf25fa35424675e16407d0cad1c8be0bf014ee403ca43cc760ebd; retrieved 2026-09-15T06:36:54.958Z.