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LAX07CA091

2007-02-20 · Prescott, Arizona, United States · None · 1 aircraft · Status: Completed

Airport KPRC

N39KB has since been reassigned. It is now registered to a different aircraft (RANS S-19, built 2012), which was not involved in this event.

Aircraft involved

Probable cause & findings

The pilot's inadequate preflight inspection, and his failure to maintain sufficient airspeed to avoid a stall/mush during an aborted takeoff, which resulted in a loss of control, and an in-flight collision with terrain. Factors associated with the accident are snow, wing contamination (snow), and an inadvertent stall.

Factual narrative

The pilot decided to abort the takeoff in the initial climb, and the airplane landed hard, collapsing the right main landing gear. Immediately after takeoff the airplane did not feel right to the pilot, and he pulled the throttle off to abort the takeoff. During the landing attempt the airplane stalled and landed hard, collapsing the right landing gear. Examination of the airplane by airport management personnel immediately after the accident revealed that the wing had approximately 1/2-inch of wet snow covering 2/3 of the upper surface of the wing, including the vortex generators. The pilot stated that during his preflight he had only cleared some of the snow from around the vortex generators. The pilot decided to abort the takeoff in the initial climb, and the airplane landed hard, collapsing the right main landing gear. Immediately after takeoff the airplane did not feel right to the pilot, and he pulled the throttle off to abort the takeoff. During the landing attempt the airplane stalled and landed hard, collapsing the right landing gear. Examination of the airplane by airport management personnel immediately after the accident revealed that the wing had approximately 1/2-inch of wet snow covering 2/3 of the upper surface of the wing, including the vortex generators. The pilot stated that during his preflight he had only cleared some of the snow from around the vortex generators. Source: NTSB Aviation Accident Database (Pre-2008 Archive) Retrieved: 2026-02-12

Verbatim from NTSB's published report. Source file NTSB_2007_LAX07CA091.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 (stall, loss of control). All research papers