CEN23LA184 · Rans S7 S
Rans S7 S · Accident: loss of control in flight during takeoff
Event
- NTSB case
- CEN23LA184
- 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
- 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
Rans S7 S
- Aircraft type
- Rans S7
- 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
- N8932L
- Operator
- Unknown
- Onboard fatalities
- Unknown
- Route
- From not recordedTo not recorded
- Aircraft age
- About 1 year (built 2022)
- 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 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 › Psychological
- Personnel issues › Task performance
Approximate · Coordinates as recorded by the NTSB; no uncertainty radius is established.
NTSB narrative
The pilot was in the front seat and a passenger, who is a flight instructor, was in the rear seat. Due to his injuries, the pilot was unable to recall what happened during the accident sequence. The passenger reported that during the takeoff, the airplane began to drift to the right. The airplane came near another airplane that was on the grass and the pilot “pitched up” to avoid the other airplane. The airplane exceeded its critical angle of attack, which resulted in an aerodynamic stall and loss of airplane control at an altitude too low to allow for recovery. The passenger estimated the aerodynamic stall occurred at 50 ft agl. The airplane impacted terrain, came to rest upright, and a postimpact fire ensued. The airplane sustained substantial damage to the fuselage and both wings. The passenger reported that the engine was producing full power until the time of impact, and he did not hear any abnormal engine noises during the accident flight. A postaccident examination confirmed flight control continuity for the airframe.
Probable cause
The pilot’s exceedance of the airplane’s critical angle of attack during the takeoff, which resulted in an aerodynamic stall and loss of airplane control at too low of an altitude to recover.
Verbatim NTSB analysis and probable cause from the NTSB dataset
Sources
NTSB record CEN23LA184
- Event ID
- 20230515174534
- Case number
- CEN23LA184
- 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, 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: 5cbd1b084eef93a97f2ef79fede5eb05e985c159ebec662a8856e24ba6d421eb; retrieved 2026-09-16T17:36:27.987Z.