ERA22LA031 · Vans Aircraft Inc RV-12
Vans Aircraft Inc RV-12 · Accident: collision with terrain/object (non-CFIT) while maneuvering
From Winter Haven Regional Airport - Gilbert Field (GIF) to Swinton Smith Field at Reidsville Municipal Airport (RVJ)
Event
- NTSB case
- ERA22LA031
- 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
- 1 · 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 Aircraft Inc RV-12
- Aircraft type
- Vans RV-12
- 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
- N525AT
- Operator
- Unknown
- Onboard fatalities
- Unknown
- Route
- From Winter Haven Regional Airport - Gilbert Field (GIF), Winter haven, FLTo Swinton Smith Field at Reidsville Municipal Airport (RVJ), Reidsville, GA
- Aircraft age
- Not recorded
- 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
- Maneuvering · low-altitude flying
- 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
- Collision with terrain/object (non-CFIT)
- Also codedOther events the NTSB coded in the sequence, such as a wire strike after a loss of power. Flight Findings uses them for its kinds of event. Glossary
- Pole
- DamageDestroyed: beyond practical repair. Substantial: damage that affects the structure, performance or handling and normally needs major repair. Minor: less than that. Glossary
- Destroyed
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
Flight track information indicated that, about 1 hour and 35 minutes after departure, in night conditions, the airplane was maneuvering in the vicinity of an airport. The pilot crossed over the runway twice while descending, maneuvered near a roadway, and the groundspeed decreased before the airplane contacted a utility pole beside the road and then impacted terrain.
Postaccident examination of the airframe and engine revealed no evidence of any preimpact mechanical malfunctions or failures that would have precluded normal operation. A family member reported that the pilot had difficulty with his vision during the day, and especially at night. Additionally, a witness stated, and a published NOTAM confirmed, that the runway edge lights at the airport were inoperative. Given the airplane’s maneuvering in the vicinity of the airport and its decreasing speed similar to an approach to landing phase of flight, it is possible that the pilot was maneuvering in an attempt to locate the runway and land when the airplane struck the utility pole.
Probable cause
The pilot’s low altitude maneuvering, which resulted in a collision with a utility pole.
Verbatim NTSB analysis and probable cause from the NTSB dataset
Sources
NTSB record ERA22LA031
- Event ID
- 20211027104165
- Case number
- ERA22LA031
- 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: 0aa7f376f71cdb43b4ed270436cbcbdcea9192cd2a5a3cd1bbadf74896e6d559; retrieved 2026-09-15T07:36:11.154Z.