CEN20CA027 · Skystar KITFOX IV
N58CD Skystar KITFOX IV · Accident: nose over/nose down while taxiing
From Richmond Field (69G) to Williamston, MI
Event
- NTSB case
- CEN20CA027
- 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
Skystar KITFOX IV
- Aircraft type
- Skystar KITFOX
- 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
- N58CD
- Operator
- N58CD
- Onboard fatalities
- Unknown
- Route
- From Richmond Field (69G), Gregory, MITo Williamston, MI
- Aircraft age
- About 27 years (built 1992)
- 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
- Taxi
- 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
- Nose over/nose down
- 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
- Environmental issues › Physical environment
- Personnel issues › Action/decision
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 stated that he landed the airplane on a harvested field in an area that he had walked the day before. When he attempted to take off from a different location than the previous landing, the airplane encountered high wheel resistance due to the soft, wet ground, and he aborted the takeoff. The pilot stated that he had not walked or inspected the area where the takeoff attempt was conducted. While attempting to taxi to the previous landing location, dirt and mud collected on the main landing gear (MLG) between the MLG leg and the tire, which caused the wheel to lock up as if the brakes had been applied. The pilot attempted to reduce engine power, but the airplane slowly nosed over, which resulted in substantial damage to the wings, fuselage, and vertical tail. The pilot reported that there was no preaccident mechanical failures or malfunctions of the braking system and that the tires stopped rotating due to the dirt and mud between the MLG leg and the tire.
Probable cause
The pilot's improper decision to continue taxiing the airplane on unsuitable terrain, which resulted in a nose-over.
Verbatim NTSB analysis and probable cause from the NTSB dataset
Sources
NTSB record CEN20CA027
- Event ID
- 20191203X02852
- Case number
- CEN20CA027
- 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. 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: 16becbdb3b4cb8e622eafb8b8ba454f20091350bfb87fa45986c73b94a3d79a2; retrieved 2026-09-16T10:43:23.533Z.