ERA20FA025 · Vans RV 4 Undesignat
Vans RV 4 Undesignat · Accident: collision with terrain/object (non-CFIT) en route
From Haller Airpark (7FL4) to an unrecorded destination
Event
- NTSB case
- ERA20FA025
- 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
- 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 4 Undesignat
- Aircraft type
- Vans RV-4
- 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
- N425JW
- Operator
- Unknown
- Onboard fatalities
- Unknown
- Route
- From Haller Airpark (7FL4), Green Cove Springs, FLTo not recorded
- Aircraft age
- About 26 years (built 1993)
- 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
- En route · cruise
- 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
- Collision with terrain/object (non-CFIT)
- DamageDestroyed: beyond practical repair. Substantial: damage that affects the structure, performance or handling and normally needs major repair. Minor: less than that. Glossary
- Destroyed
Cause areas
- Not determined › Not determined
Approximate · Coordinates from the NTSB case API, which marks them as estimated or does not say; no uncertainty radius is established.
NTSB narrative
According to a family member, the pilot intended to conduct a brief local flight. A witness at the departure airport reported that he heard an airplane take off. He did not identify the airplane; however, about 10 minutes later the airport experienced a complete electrical power outage.
The airplane was located in a clearing in a heavily wooded area. The wreckage and accident site were consistent with the airplane impacting powerlines before impacting terrain. Most of the airplane was destroyed by postcrash fire. The engine was examined, and no anomalies were noted.
The pilot had recent diagnoses of several cardiovascular conditions that would increase his risk for an acute cardiovascular event, including severe mitral valve regurgitation, ventricular enlargement, and heart failure; however, there were no autopsy findings or radio communication to determine if the pilot experienced a cardiac event. Post-mortem toxicology detected the impairing medication gabapentin in liver tissue and urine, but it could not be determined if the concentration was at therapeutic or impairing levels; therefore, whether the pilot’s medical conditions or his use of medication contributed to the accident could not be determined.
Given the lack of available evidence, the reason for the airplane’s impact with power lines could not be determined.
Probable cause
Impact with power lines for reasons that could not be determined based on available evidence.
Verbatim NTSB analysis and probable cause from the NTSB dataset
Sources
NTSB record ERA20FA025
- Event ID
- 20191031X04119
- Case number
- ERA20FA025
- 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: 39b59e4d7753c2143328c22bcb78ae3eb7ea0757ddb57753e445511f0764a098; retrieved 2026-09-15T07:07:48.253Z.