ANC18FA041 · Mason HAL J KITFOX MODEL 1
Mason HAL J KITFOX MODEL 1 · Accident: loss of control in flight during initial climb
From Blue Skies Farm Airport (OR87) to an unrecorded destination
Event
- NTSB case
- ANC18FA041
- 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
Mason HAL J KITFOX MODEL 1
- Aircraft type
- Mason Hal KITFOX MODEL 1
- 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
- N375KF
- Operator
- Unknown
- Onboard fatalities
- Unknown
- Route
- From Blue Skies Farm Airport (OR87), Salem, ORTo not recorded
- Aircraft age
- About 7 years (built 2011)
- 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
- Initial climb
- 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
- Personnel issues › Action/decision
- Personnel issues › Experience/knowledge
- Personnel issues › Task performance
Approximate · Coordinates as recorded by the NTSB; no uncertainty radius is established.
NTSB narrative
The student pilot had just completed maintenance on his newly purchased experimental, amateur-built light sport airplane and told a witness that he was going to conduct taxi tests. A few hours after observing the airplane taxi along the runway multiple times, he noticed that the student's vehicle and trailer were still parked at the airport but that the airplane was not there. The airplane wreckage was subsequently located near the edge of a wooded area about 100 yards from the runway.
The student's flight instructor estimated that the he had accumulated about 35 total hours of flight experience, almost all of which was in another make and model airplane. He stated that he did not think the student had not previously flown the accident airplane make and model.
The fuselage exhibited accordion-style crushing damage, consistent with a near-vertical impact indicative of a loss of airplane control. Postaccident examination of the airplane revealed no evidence of any preimpact mechanical failures or malfunctions that would have precluded normal operation.
Although toxicological testing detected one potentially sedating antihistamine in the student's urine, it was not detected in blood. Therefore, the use of the medication likely did not contribute to the accident.
Based on the available evidence, it is likely that the student decided to take off in the airplane and, shortly after takeoff, lost airplane control. The student had not been endorsed by an instructor to fly the accident airplane solo and likely didn't not have the experience to maintain control after takeoff.
Probable cause
The student pilot's improper decision to operate an airplane for which he was not endorsed to fly solo and in which he had limited experience or training, and his subsequent loss of airplane control after takeoff.
Verbatim NTSB analysis and probable cause from the NTSB dataset
Sources
NTSB record ANC18FA041
- Event ID
- 20180604X00946
- Case number
- ANC18FA041
- 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: local date, investigation status. Values present in the bulk record are kept.
- The date is the local date; the NTSB stores the UTC date 2018-06-04.
- API snapshot SHA-256: 0d7120df37d03158399b75dae723a6333a88af79e11f9d10d2825c32ff3a2777; retrieved 2026-09-15T06:42:06.344Z.