FTW03LA139
2003-04-22 · Canton, Texas, United States · Minor · 1 aircraft · Status: Completed
Airport 1TA7
Aircraft involved
Probable cause & findings
The pilot's failure to maintain directional control during the landing flare/touchdown. A contributing factor was the soft terrain.
Factual narrative
On April 22, 2003, approximately 2020 central daylight time, a Hackney Vans RV-6A experimental homebuilt airplane, N528DH, experienced a loss of control while landing at a private hard surface airstrip near Canton, Texas. The airplane was owned by a private individual and flown by the pilot under 14 Code of Federal Regulations Part 91. The commercial pilot, sole occupant, received minor injuries, and the airplane sustained substantial damage. Visual meteorological conditions prevailed for the personal flight, and a flight plan was not filed. The cross-country flight originated from Anadarko Municipal Airport (F68), Anadarko, Oklahoma, approximately 1835. On the Pilot/Operator Aircraft Accident Report (NTSB Form 6120.1/2), the 5,000 hour pilot reported that during the landing flare/touchdown on runway 14, the airplane drifted to the left of the 2,600 foot long runway. The airplane drifted into the grass and soft terrain, the nose landing gear dug into the soft ground about 1,000 feet past the touchdown point and the airplane nosed over, coming to rest in the inverted position. Local authorities, airport personnel, and the pilot examined the airplane. The airplane fuselage canopy, vertical stabilizer, rudder, and propeller were found damaged. The U. S. Naval Observatory reported sunset at 1959, and the end of civil twilight at 2025. During the landing flare/touchdown at dusk, the airplane drifted to the left of the private, hard-surface, 2,600-foot runway. The airplane landed in the grass and soft terrain, the nose landing gear dug into the soft ground, and the airplane nosed-over, coming to rest inverted. Source: NTSB Aviation Accident Database (Pre-2008 Archive) Retrieved: 2026-02-12
Verbatim from NTSB's published report. Source file
NTSB_2003_FTW03LA139.txt.
Findings + structured fields enriched from FAA avall.mdb.
Full investigation docket on
data.ntsb.gov ↗.
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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.