ERA19TA277 · Vans RV 6 Undesignat
Vans RV 6 Undesignat · Accident: loss of control in flight during landing
From Zephyrhills Municipal Airport (ZPH) to South Lakeland Airport (X49)
Event
- NTSB case
- ERA19TA277
- 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
- 0
- 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
Vans RV 6 Undesignat
- Aircraft type
- Vans RV-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
- N12033
- Operator
- Unknown
- Onboard fatalities
- Unknown
- Route
- From Zephyrhills Municipal Airport (ZPH), Zephyrhills, FLTo South Lakeland Airport (X49), Lakeland, FL
- Aircraft age
- About 24 years (built 1995)
- 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
- 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
- Aircraft › Aircraft oper/perf/capability
- Personnel issues › Action/decision
- Personnel issues › Task performance
Approximate · Coordinates from the NTSB case API, which marks them as estimated or does not say; no uncertainty radius is established.
NTSB narrative
The pilot, who was also a flight instructor, stated that the airplane owner contacted him for tailwheel instruction in his recently purchased airplane. The owner did not hold a pilot certificate, but the pilot agreed to fly the airplane with the owner as a passenger.
The pilot stated that, during landing approach, “the airplane banked to the left and pitch[ed] down about 8 or 10 degrees.” The pilot attempted to regain control of the airplane, but the controls were “very stiff.” He recalled heading toward the trees and tried again to move the controls; this time, the airplane pitched up slightly, but not enough to slow the descent. The airplane impacted trees and the ground, resulting in substantial damage to the fuselage, wings, and empennage.
The pilot reported that he thought the passenger applied control inputs during landing, which resulted in his inability to control the airplane. He stated that the airplane “definitely did not stall.” He also reported that there were no preimpact mechanical malfunctions or failures of the airplane that would have precluded normal operation. The owner of the airplane did not provide a statement regarding the accident.
Probable cause
The pilot’s inability to maintain control due to passenger interference.
Verbatim NTSB analysis and probable cause from the NTSB dataset
Sources
NTSB record ERA19TA277
- Event ID
- 20190923X24629
- Case number
- ERA19TA277
- 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, coordinates, cause areas. 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: 1683f330f31bbf9ef49267fa9aff5bddd5c9314927dc79504b6f0bac03b4d33e; retrieved 2026-09-16T10:11:40.350Z.