GAA18CA255 · Pphu Ekolot KR-030 TOPAZ
North Illinois Union Group Aircraft Divi Pphu Ekolot KR-030 TOPAZ · Accident: hard landing
From DeKalb Taylor Municipal Airport (DKB) to DeKalb Taylor Municipal Airport (DKB)
Event
- NTSB case
- GAA18CA255
- 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
Pphu Ekolot KR-030 TOPAZ
- Aircraft type
- Pphu Ekolot KR-030
- 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
- N468KM
- Onboard fatalities
- Unknown
- Route
- From DeKalb Taylor Municipal Airport (DKB), Dekalb, ILTo DeKalb Taylor Municipal Airport (DKB), Dekalb, IL
- Aircraft age
- About 1 year (built 2017)
- 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
- Landing
- 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
- Hard landing
- 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 › Action/decision
- Personnel issues › Task performance
Approximate · Coordinates as recorded by the NTSB; no uncertainty radius is established.
NTSB narrative
The pilot reported that, during a flight review, while landing in gusting wind conditions, the airplane ballooned and landed hard on the left main landing gear. The airplane veered sharply to the left, and the pilot applied full power to go around, but the airplane "would not climb." The flight instructor took the flight controls and the airplane came to rest about 400 yards south of the runway.
The flight instructor reported that, during the landing, the airplane ballooned and "abruptly dropped" onto the runway, damaging the left landing gear. The airplane veered to the left, the pilot applied power to go around, and the airplane bounced into the air. He added that the airplane would not climb and continued to bounce multiple times before coming to rest south of the runway. He believed the propeller and landing gear damage may have prevented the airplane from climbing during the go around.
The airplane sustained substantial damage to the fuselage.
The automated weather observation station located on the airport reported that, about 6 minutes before the accident, the wind was from 250° at 11 knots, gusting to 16 knots. The airplane landed on runway 27.
Probable cause
The pilot’s improper landing flare during gusting wind conditions, and the flight instructor’s delayed remedial action.
Verbatim NTSB analysis and probable cause from the NTSB dataset
Sources
NTSB record GAA18CA255
- Event ID
- 20180507X91432
- Case number
- GAA18CA255
- 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: c79a18ea9dd812f2e62ba3e95e9d2332ea17fb2f8fc7a1c84ea8ff3691d94e24; retrieved 2026-09-16T07:03:56.830Z.