WPR20CA080 · Merwin Kitfox S7 Super S
Merwin Kitfox S7 Super S · Accident: loss of control on ground during landing
From Phoenix Goodyear Airport (GYR) to Phoenix Goodyear Airport (GYR)
Event
- NTSB case
- WPR20CA080
- 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
Merwin Kitfox S7 Super S
- Aircraft type
- Merwin 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
- N399A
- Operator
- Unknown
- Onboard fatalities
- Unknown
- Route
- From Phoenix Goodyear Airport (GYR), Goodyear, AZTo Phoenix Goodyear Airport (GYR), Goodyear, AZ
- Aircraft age
- About 1 year (built 2019)
- 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 · landing roll
- 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 on ground
- 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
- Not determined › Not determined
Approximate · Coordinates as recorded by the NTSB; no uncertainty radius is established.
NTSB narrative
The pilot of the tailwheel-equipped airplane reported that, he was on a familiarization/test flight with the pilot/owner. They had conducted 7 successful landings and while on final approach for the 8th landing, he entered a forward slip to steepen the descent angle without increasing airspeed, and pitched for landing. As the airplane touched down, there was no drift or yaw; however, during the landing rollout the rudder pedals "jerked," and the nose began to veer rapidly to the left. He applied right rudder pedal, but the airplane continued to yaw to the left and subsequently ground looped. The airplane sustained substantial damage to the rudder The pilot reported that the tailwheel chains and steering springs were intact, but the chains were not attached to the springs, and one of the tailwheel steering chains may have disconnected while maneuvering to land. The nut retaining the tailwheel spring was not located and the spring hole appeared to be undamaged.
Probable cause
The tail wheel mechanism detachment for reasons that could not be determined due to the lack of available evidence which resulted in the loss of directional control on landing.
Verbatim NTSB analysis and probable cause from the NTSB dataset
Sources
NTSB record WPR20CA080
- Event ID
- 20200126X11533
- Case number
- WPR20CA080
- 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: c64c7f549032460ee94b94e566ce707f7ac0b07934748fdbe6efd54a4d3a84c2; retrieved 2026-09-16T10:59:33.265Z.