CEN24LA324 · Rans RV8
Rans RV8 · Accident: loss of control on ground during landing
Event
- NTSB case
- CEN24LA324
- 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
Rans RV8
- Aircraft type
- Rans RV8
- 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
- N348CW
- Operator
- Unknown
- Onboard fatalities
- Unknown
- Route
- From not recordedTo not recorded
- Aircraft age
- About 25 years (built 1999)
- 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
- Landing · landing roll
- 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 on ground
- 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
- Environmental issues › Conditions/weather/phenomena
- Personnel issues › Action/decision
- Personnel issues › Task performance
Approximate · Coordinates as recorded by the NTSB; no uncertainty radius is established.
NTSB narrative
The student pilot executed a normal landing to runway 36 in the tailwheel airplane, and the flight instructor guarded the controls. The flight instructor stated that the landing was excellent and on centerline of the runway. During rollout, a level, tail-up attitude was maintained as the airplane slowed. As soon as the tailwheel contacted the runway, the airplane began an unexpected swerve to the right. The flight instructor stated that no input from him or his student caused the swerve. Both the student pilot and the flight instructor tried to correct the swerve; however, the airplane did not respond to inputs of full left rudder and full left brake. The airplane ground looped, hit a ditch, and sustained substantial damage to the left side of the fuselage adjacent to the left wing attachment point. Examination of the airplane did not reveal any preimpact anomalies with the tailwheel assembly, main wheel brakes, or the flight controls that would have precluded normal operation. The flight instructor reported that there were no mechanical malfunctions or failures with the airplane that would have precluded normal operations. The reported wind about the time of the accident was 280° at 13 knots with gusts to 16 knots. The flight instructor estimated the wind at the time of the accident was 330° at 5 knots.
Probable cause
The student pilot’s failure to maintain directional control and the flight instructors delayed remedial action while landing with a gusty crosswind.
Verbatim NTSB analysis and probable cause from the NTSB dataset
Sources
NTSB record CEN24LA324
- Event ID
- 20240822194981
- Case number
- CEN24LA324
- 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 UTC date the NTSB stores; the local time zone is not recorded, so the local date may differ by a day.
- API snapshot SHA-256: 822cd5e321e3fc8efc6275f1354a67d29eb8f0b54efac296fcf249d388deab9f; retrieved 2026-09-16T19:11:58.150Z.