CEN20CA277 · Kitfox KITFOX SPORT
Kitfox KITFOX SPORT · Accident: loss of lift during takeoff
From Granby Grand County Airport (GNB) to Walden Jackson County Airport (33V)
Event
- NTSB case
- CEN20CA277
- 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
Kitfox KITFOX SPORT
- Aircraft type
- Kitfox SPORT
- 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
- N702KS
- Operator
- Unknown
- Onboard fatalities
- Unknown
- Route
- From Granby Grand County Airport (GNB), Granby, COTo Walden Jackson County Airport (33V), Walden, CO
- Aircraft age
- About 18 years (built 2002)
- 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
- Takeoff
- 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 lift
- 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
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 reported that during the flight he noticed the oil pressure gauge fluctuating and executed a precautionary landing to a road to examine the engine. He stated that after landing, he performed a walk around inspection of the airplane, which included looking for leaks and checking the oil level and security of the oil cap. Finding no anomalies, he proceeded to take off from the road. During takeoff and while the airplane was gaining airspeed in ground effect, the departure path went over a terrain depression and into a down sloping bowl; the airplane encountered a sudden sink/down flow of air and lost about 10-15 ft of altitude. The pilot attempted to turn toward lower terrain while maintaining airspeed but the sink/down flow of air continued and so he maneuvered to land the airplane in a meadow. Unable to reach the meadow, he turned the airplane into sloping terrain to minimize the impact energy. During the impact, the airplane sustained damage to both wings, the fuselage, and empennage.
The pilot reported that there were no mechanical failures or malfunctions, and noted that the fluctuating oil pressure gauge was likely due to the sending unit location on the engine and associated vibration or a loose ground connection.
Probable cause
The encounter with the downdrafts during the attempted takeoff, which resulted in decreased airplane's climb performance and subsequent impact with terrain.
Verbatim NTSB analysis and probable cause from the NTSB dataset
Sources
NTSB record CEN20CA277
- Event ID
- 20200713X13347
- Case number
- CEN20CA277
- 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: eed05271d99b00d61036e73cb7a8a3d013aaba6e02fd11e3a2901e90d4bcaa91; retrieved 2026-09-16T12:06:14.185Z.