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CEN20CA177

2020-05-05 · Little Falls, Minnesota, United States · Minor · 1 aircraft · Status: Completed

Airport LXL

Aircraft involved

Probable cause & findings

The uncertificated pilot's failure to maintain aircraft control during takeoff, which resulted in an impact with terrain.

Factual narrative

The uncertificated pilot stated that he replaced the wing and control surface skins of the airplane and planned to perform a test flight. He said that shortly after adding power, the airplane "jumped up" 15 ft off the ground and drifted away from the runway centerline. The pilot applied corrective control inputs to return the airplane back to runway centerline and then applied full engine power to initiate a go-around. About 100 ft agl, the airplane banked hard to the left. The pilot applied right aileron control input but was unable to reduce the bank. The airplane descended and impacted the ground about 200 yards from the end of the runway. The pilot stated that there were no engine-related mechanical anomalies. The flight controls were subject to impact damage; however, the damage was consistent with failures associated with overload due to ground impact and not a failure in flight. Source: NTSB Aviation Accident Database Retrieved: 2026-02-12

NTSB Findings

FAA avdata. C = Cause, F = Factor.

  • C Personnel issues-Task performance-Use of equip/info-Aircraft control-Pilot - C
  • C Personnel issues-Experience/knowledge-Experience/qualifications-Qualification/certification-Pilot - C

Verbatim from NTSB's published report. Source file NTSB_2020_CEN20CA177.txt. Findings + structured fields enriched from FAA avall.mdb. Full investigation docket on data.ntsb.gov ↗.

Related research

Matched on aircraft type or causal vocabulary (go-around). All research papers