WPR25LA299 · Vans RV3-A
Vanguard Squadron Vans RV3-A · Accident: loss of engine power (total) during takeoff
From an unrecorded airport to Sioux Gateway Airport / Brigadier General Bud Day Field (SUX)
Event
- NTSB case
- WPR25LA299
- 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
- Ongoing
- 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
Vans RV3-A
- Aircraft type
- Vans RV3
- 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
- N16MR
- Operator
- Vanguard Squadron
- Onboard fatalities
- Unknown
- Route
- From not recordedTo Sioux Gateway Airport / Brigadier General Bud Day Field (SUX), Sioux City, IA
- Aircraft age
- About 37 years (built 1988)
- 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 engine power (total)
- 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
No findings designated as a cause are recorded in the NTSB data yet.
Approximate · Coordinates from the NTSB case API, which marks them as estimated or does not say; no uncertainty radius is established.
NTSB narrative
On September 27, 2025, about 1600 mountain daylight time, an experimental amateur-built Vans RV-3A, N16MR, sustained substantial damage when it was involved in an accident near Torrington, Wyoming. The pilot was seriously injured. The airplane was operated as a Title 14 Code of Federal Regulations Part 91 personal flight. According to the airport manager, the pilot departed runway 10 and during the initial climb, the engine lost power. The pilot attempted to return to the runway, however, was unable to make it and initiated a forced landing to an open field about 1/2 mile north of the runway. During the landing roll, the airplane struck a berm and nosed over. The airplane sustained substantial damage to the vertical stabilizer and rudder. The airplane was recovered to a secure location for further examination.
Verbatim NTSB factual narrative from the NTSB dataset
Sources
NTSB record WPR25LA299
- Event ID
- 20250930201761
- Case number
- WPR25LA299
- 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. 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: 8cc1aae77a3891576745298624c1c27c1e813e6297ac27ccd215d8df00095b89; retrieved 2026-09-16T20:24:38.811Z.