CEN18LA298 · Extra EA300 LC
Extra EA300 LC and Cessna 172 Undesignat · Accident: midair collision during landing
Event
- NTSB case
- CEN18LA298
- 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
Aircraft 1 · Extra EA300 LC
- Aircraft type
- Extra EA300
- 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
- N32WR
- Operator
- Unknown
- Onboard fatalities
- Unknown
- Route
- From Appleton International Airport (ATW), Appleton, WITo North Fox Island Airport (6Y3), North Fox Island, MI
- Aircraft age
- About 4 years (built 2014)
- 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
- Midair collision
- DamageDestroyed: beyond practical repair. Substantial: damage that affects the structure, performance or handling and normally needs major repair. Minor: less than that. Glossary
- Substantial
Aircraft 2 · Cessna 172 Undesignat
- Aircraft type
- Cessna 172
- 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
- N6021A
- Operator
- Unknown
- Onboard fatalities
- Unknown
- Route
- From North Fox Island Airport (6Y3), North Fox Island, MITo not recorded
- Aircraft age
- About 62 years (built 1956)
- 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
- Midair collision
- 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 › Psychological
Approximate · Coordinates as recorded by the NTSB; no uncertainty radius is established.
NTSB narrative
An airline transport pilot in an aerobatic low-wing airplane, an Extra 300, with a passenger on board was landing while an airline transport pilot in a high-wing airplane, a Cessna 172, near maximum weight with two passengers on board was conducting a short/soft-field takeoff from an nontowered, island-based runway surrounded by tall trees.
The Extra pilot and passenger reported that the pilot's landing intention was communicated on the common traffic advisory frequency (CTAF) with no replies. They saw an airplane at the opposite end of the airstrip, and the pilot decided to land. The Cessna pilot reported that he monitored the CTAF and then taxied down the center of the runway; he heard a radio call on the frequency from an airport on a nearby island. The Cessna pilot made his departure radio call on the CTAF in the blind and conducted a rolling departure with as much runway ahead as possible; he did not hear or see any other airplanes. The Cessna lifted off about 5 to 7 ft above ground level and accelerated to best angle of climb speed plus 10 knots. The Extra pilot indicated that he did not see any aircraft while he was on final approach to landing until his airplane was about 20-30 ft above the landing surface just before the threshold when he saw a bright object out the right side just in front of the wing. The Extra and the Cessna then collided.
The CTAF frequency at the accident airport is not recorded. However, a witness monitoring another CTAF frequency on a nearby island overheard the pilot of an airplane calling intention to land and remarked to a customer that the call was on the wrong frequency. It is likely that the Extra pilot was transmitting on the CTAF frequency for the airport on a nearby island; the Cessna pilot likely heard this transmission but attributed it to a pilot landing at the other airport.
The airport leaseholder's website contained a link to pilot information, which included a safety briefing for the airport. The briefing recommended that the airport's CTAF, as well as another local airport's CTAF, be monitored. In addition, the briefing recommended that arriving aircraft fly over the airfield and scan for aircraft on the ground using a left traffic pattern. The briefing advised that the airport is in the Unimproved Airport Category and that pilots "land at your own risk."
The Extra pilot's use of an incorrect CTAF precluded him from hearing the Cessna pilot's transmission of his intent to depart. In addition, trees surrounding the runway precluded the Extra pilot from seeing the Cessna's departure until it was too late to take evasive action.
Probable cause
The Extra pilot’s failure to see and avoid the Cessna, which resulted in an in-flight collision. Contributing to the accident was the failure of the Extra pilot to tune his radio to the correct frequency, which resulted in no common traffic advisories being heard or recognized as relevant by either pilot.
Verbatim NTSB analysis and probable cause from the NTSB dataset
Sources
NTSB record CEN18LA298
- Event ID
- 20180730X13125
- Case number
- CEN18LA298
- 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: e71261fcdf16043b4feaf1df4bcd32a37972368338a13df9601eac560335a380; retrieved 2026-09-13T18:30:16.116Z.