CHI05CA107
2005-04-27 · Lyndon, Kansas, United States · None · 1 aircraft · Status: Completed
Airport 39K
Aircraft involved
Probable cause & findings
The pilot improper recovery from a bounced landing, and his inadequate compensation for a tailwind, which resulted in a loss of control and subsequent collision with the ground. Contributing to the accident was the pilot's selection of a wrong runway, the tailwind, trees, and the pond.
Factual narrative
On April 27, 2005, at 1730 central daylight time, an amateur-built experimental Whittman Tailwind, N74849, sustained substantial damage when it nosed over after an aborted landing on runway 16 (2,160 feet by 60 feet, turf/grass) at the Pomona Lake Airport (39K), Lyndon, Kansas. The private pilot was not injured. The 14 CFR Part 91 personal flight departed 39K at 1700 on a local flight. Visual meteorological conditions prevailed at the time of the accident. No flight plan was filed. The pilot reported that he bounced the airplane during landing and he attempted to abort the landing. He reported that he "throttled up to go around" but the left wing "dropped" and the crosswind blew the airplane to the left of the runway. He reported that he saw trees and a pond ahead so he shut down the engine. He reported the airplane hit on the landing gear but the airplane flipped over. The pilot reported that he had a total of 407 flight hours and 1.7 hours in make and model. The pilot reported the winds were from 270 degrees. The observed winds at the Philip Billard Municipal Airport (TOP), Topeka, Kansas, about 30 nautical miles north of 39K, were 290 degrees at 8 knots. The amateur-built experimental airplane sustained substantial damage when it nosed over after an aborted landing on runway 16. The pilot reported that he bounced the airplane during landing and he attempted to abort the landing. When he "throttled up to go around," the left wing "dropped" and the crosswind blew the airplane to the left of the runway. He saw trees and a pond ahead so he shut down the engine. The airplane hit on the landing gear but the airplane flipped over during the landing roll. The pilot reported that he had a total of 407 flight hours and 1.7 hours in make and model. The pilot reported the winds were from 270 degrees. The observed winds at the Philip Billard Municipal Airport (TOP), Topeka, Kansas, about 30 nautical miles north of 39K, were 290 degrees at 8 knots. Source: NTSB Aviation Accident Database (Pre-2008 Archive) Retrieved: 2026-02-12
Verbatim from NTSB's published report. Source file
NTSB_2005_CHI05CA107.txt.
Findings + structured fields enriched from FAA avall.mdb.
Full investigation docket on
data.ntsb.gov ↗.
Search this event elsewhere
External sources are reported, not agency: signal that something happened, not fact about what happened.
- TallyAero Live Wire Aviation press
- NTSB CAROL Agency ↗
- NTSB Docket Agency ↗
- Aviation Safety Network Aviation press ↗
- Kathryn's Report Aviation press ↗
- Aviation Herald Aviation press ↗
- AVweb Aviation press ↗
- Pilots of America Community ↗
- Reddit /r/flying Community ↗
- FlightAware Aviation press ↗
- AOPA accident database Aviation press ↗
- Google News News ↗
- DuckDuckGo News ↗
Related research
Matched on aircraft type or causal vocabulary (loss of control). All research papers
- Embry-Riddle Scholarly Commons 2025 · Journal article (JAAER) A Scoping Review of Aviation Loss of Control Inflight Research
Loss of control – inflight (LOC-I) contributes to aircraft accidents at unacceptably high rates. Significant industry efforts and research have aimed to improve LOC-I prevention, detection, and recove…
- SKYbrary (Eurocontrol) 2024 · SKYbrary article Loss of Control In-Flight (LOC-I) — SKYbrary Knowledge Base
SKYbrary comprehensive knowledge-base entry on Loss of Control In-Flight — definitions, contributing factors, accident case studies (Air France 447, Colgan 3407), and prevention strategies.
- Semantic Scholar 2024 · Article (International Conference on Networking and Services) Risk Assessment of Loss of Control In-Flight Trajectories for Urban Air Mobility Safety
In Urban Air Mobility (UAM), maintaining a minimum separation between aircraft is a safety requirement, which becomes challenging amidst congested air traffic and off-nominal conditions, such as Loss …
- NTSB Aircraft Accident Reports 2022 · Accident report Loss of Control on Takeoff in Icing Conditions — Citation 560XL
Cessna Citation 560XL fatal takeoff icing accident, March 2018. Investigation of a Citation 560XL loss-of-control takeoff accident in icing conditions.
- Semantic Scholar 2021 · Article (Aviation) ANALYSIS OF GENERAL AVIATION FIXED-WING AIRCRAFT ACCIDENTS INVOLVING INFLIGHT LOSS OF CONTROL USING A STATE-BASED APPROACH
Inflight loss of control (LOC-I) is a significant cause of General Aviation (GA) fixed-wing aircraft accidents. The United States National Transportation Safety Board’s database provides a rich source…
- NASA NTRS 2021 · Presentation Use of Design of Experiments in Determining Neural Network Architectures for Loss of Control Detection
Abstract—We describe empirical methods for selecting a neural network architecture to implement belief state inference on generic commercial transport aircraft.