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Atlas / NTSB / GAA18CA473

NTSB CAROL · Event

Event GAA18CA473

2018-08-04 Greeley, Colorado, United States Airport · GXY Serious 1 aircraft Status: Completed

Registry · N56LK

FAA Aircraft Registry record.

Make / Model

VAN'S AIRCRAFT RV-6A

Year of manufacture

2001 · 17 years old at event

Engine

LYCOMING O-360-A1A (180 hp)

Seats / Engines

2 seats · 1 engine

Last airworthiness date

20180504

ADS-B equipped

Yes — Mode-S A72595

Registrant of record

ALBRITTON RANDY L

Source: FAA Aircraft Registry (releasable master file).

Aircraft involved

Probable cause & findings

The pilot’s exceedance of the airplane’s critical angle of attack during approach, which resulted in an aerodynamic stall.

Factual narrative

The pilot reported that, during approach, he airplane encountered the usual amount of sink, he added power, but applied too much back stick. The airplane aerodynamically stalled, landed hard, and the airplane came to rest 1,500 ft down the runway. The airplane sustained substantial damage to the right wing and fuselage. The pilot reported that there were no preaccident mechanical failures or malfunctions with the airplane that would have precluded normal operation. The pilot reported that, during approach, the airplane encountered the usual amount of sink, so he added power but applied too much back stick. The airplane aerodynamically stalled, landed hard, and then came to rest 1,500 ft down the runway. The airplane sustained substantial damage to the right wing and fuselage. The pilot reported that there were no preaccident mechanical failures or malfunctions with the airplane that would have precluded normal operation. Source: NTSB Aviation Accident Database Retrieved: 2026-02-12

NTSB Findings

Hierarchical cause / factor breakdown from the FAA bulk avdata database. Each finding tagged C (Cause) or F (Factor).

  • C Personnel issues-Task performance-Use of equip/info-Aircraft control-Pilot - C
  • C Aircraft-Aircraft oper/perf/capability-Performance/control parameters-Angle of attack-Capability exceeded - C

Verbatim from NTSB's published report. Source file NTSB_2018_GAA18CA473.txt. Findings + structured fields enriched from FAA avall.mdb. Full investigation docket on data.ntsb.gov ↗.

Related research

What the literature says.

Academic papers and agency reports matching this event's aircraft type or causal vocabulary (stall). Sourced from NASA NTRS, NTSB Safety Studies, FAA CAMI, AOPA Air Safety Institute, Embry-Riddle Scholarly Commons, arXiv, and the Semantic Scholar academic graph.

Browse the full corpus — academia portal ↗