ERA20LA213 · Vans RV8 UNDESIGNAT
Vans RV8 UNDESIGNAT · Accident: loss of engine power (partial) during initial climb
From Atlanta Speedway Airport (HMP) to Atlanta Speedway Airport (HMP)
Event
- NTSB case
- ERA20LA213
- 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
Vans RV8 UNDESIGNAT
- Aircraft type
- Vans RV8
- 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
- N553KM
- Operator
- Rieder Kenneth J
- Onboard fatalities
- Unknown
- Route
- From Atlanta Speedway Airport (HMP), Hampton, GATo Atlanta Speedway Airport (HMP), Hampton, GA
- Aircraft age
- About 16 years (built 2004)
- 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
- Loss of engine power (partial)
- 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
No findings designated as a cause are recorded in the NTSB data yet.
Approximate · Coordinates as recorded by the NTSB; no uncertainty radius is established.
NTSB narrative
During the airplane’s initial climb after takeoff, witnesses reported hearing the engine misfire and seeing black smoke trailing the airplane. The pilot performed a 180° turn and approached the departure runway in the opposite direction and overflew the airport environment. The airplane subsequently entered a 180° turn for landing on the departure runway and impacted terrain in a flat attitude at the approach end of the runway. The landing gear and cockpit canopy separated, and the wings and the fuselage were substantially damaged. Video of the accident captured the airplane in steep pitch and roll attitudes at low altitude. A detailed postaccident examination of the engine revealed that the fuel nozzle on the No. 2 cylinder was blocked and the spark plugs (top and bottom) revealed signatures consistent with "rich" mixtures in the Nos. 1 and 4 cylinders and "lean" mixtures in the Nos. 2 and 3 cylinders. The blocked fuel nozzle likely resulted in the partial loss of engine power.
Probable cause
The pilot’s excessive maneuvering at low altitude following a partial loss of engine power which resulted in an aerodynamic stall and collision with terrain.
Verbatim NTSB analysis and probable cause from the NTSB dataset
Sources
NTSB record ERA20LA213
- Event ID
- 20200612X11430
- Case number
- ERA20LA213
- 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: 3ba8fe3a5d9a5d4e88065397a05ae715791cddf398d4cbfed4475cf8e382e866; retrieved 2026-09-16T11:50:01.402Z.