WPR21LA142 · Davis DAN B LANCAIR EVOLUTION
CC Aircraft Sales Davis DAN B LANCAIR EVOLUTION · Accident: part(s) separation from aircraft en route
From Falcon Field (FFZ) to Oceanside Municipal Airport (OKB)
Event
- NTSB case
- WPR21LA142
- 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
- Event fatalities
- Unknown
- 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
Davis DAN B LANCAIR EVOLUTION
- Aircraft type
- Davis Dan LANCAIR EVOLUTION
- 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
- N469KS
- Operator
- CC Aircraft Sales
- Onboard fatalities
- Unknown
- Route
- From Falcon Field (FFZ), Mesa, AZTo Oceanside Municipal Airport (OKB), Oceanside, CA
- Aircraft age
- About 6 years (built 2015)
- 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 · climb to 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
- Part(s) separation from aircraft
- 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 structures
- 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
The pilot reported that, while climbing through 22,000 ft mean sea level on a cross-country flight, the main cabin door departed the airplane. The pilot immediately diverted and landed uneventfully at a nearby airport. The door was not recovered. The horizontal and vertical stabilizers sustained substantial damage due to impact from the door as it departed the airplane.
The kit manufacturer reported two previous door failures that had prompted the issuance of an inspection advisory to inspect the door for cracks. This inspection was not performed on the accident airplane; however, postaccident examination revealed no damage to the hinges and door latch anchors, all of which were still connected at the frame. Because the door was not recovered and could not be examined, the reason for its separation could not be determined based on the available information.
Probable cause
A malfunction of the main cabin door latching mechanism for reasons that could not be determined based on the available information.
Verbatim NTSB analysis and probable cause from the NTSB dataset
Sources
NTSB record WPR21LA142
- Event ID
- 20210325102803
- Case number
- WPR21LA142
- 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: 961e0dec22ba4479a586fd1b19819f8c9719da71dc1d828b717c2139b7409f09; retrieved 2026-09-16T13:52:01.183Z.