CEN22LA163 · Kitfox 7 Super Spor
Kitfox 7 Super Spor · Accident: loss of control in flight while maneuvering
Event
- NTSB case
- CEN22LA163
- 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
- 2 · all aircraft and ground
- Ground fatalities
- 0
- 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 7 Super Spor
- Aircraft type
- Kitfox 7
- 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
- N789RB
- Operator
- Unknown
- Onboard fatalities
- Unknown
- Route
- From not recordedTo not recorded
- Aircraft age
- About 2 years (built 2020)
- 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
- Loss of control in flight
- 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 › Task performance
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 of the experimental, amateur-built airplane was performing a slow speed low pass over an unpaved airstrip when he initiated a climb to the left. A witness reported that, when the airplane was about 650 ft above the ground, it “stalled,” the left wing dropped, and the nose went straight down. He additionally reported that the engine was running throughout the flight. The airplane was consumed by a postcrash fire; however, examination of the airframe and engine revealed no evidence of mechanical malfunctions or failures that would have precluded normal operation. Autopsy of the pilot revealed significant coronary artery disease and a variety of medications that cause significant depression of the central nervous system, including four sedating antihistamines. Some of these medications were found only at very low levels, but the only specimens available were in cavity blood, which may not represent levels in antemortem intravascular blood or be directly related to effects. The reason for the pilot’s concomitant use of antihistamines was unknown, as are the potential effects of using them in combination, including any hangover or withdrawal effects. Therefore, whether effects from the pilot’s use of multiple sedating medications contributed to the circumstances of this accident could not be determined. Based on the available evidence, it is likely that the pilot exceeded the airplane’s critical angle of attack during low-level flight, which resulted in an aerodynamic stall and loss of control at an altitude too low to allow for recovery.
Probable cause
The pilot's exceedance of the airplane's critical angle of attack during low-level flight, which resulted in an aerodynamic stall and loss of control at an altitude too low to recover.
Verbatim NTSB analysis and probable cause from the NTSB dataset
Sources
NTSB record CEN22LA163
- Event ID
- 20220331104865
- Case number
- CEN22LA163
- 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: b90eb1b9f3ee1bfe831c8a8db5710b08f8fbe00123869eaacebf709c92f458ed; retrieved 2026-09-15T07:42:36.255Z.