CHI95LA144 · Quad City CHALLENGER
Quad City CHALLENGER · Accident: loss of control in flight during initial climb
From No airport to an unrecorded destination
Event
- NTSB case
- CHI95LA144
- Event typeAccident: someone killed or seriously injured, or the aircraft substantially damaged (NTSB definition). Incident: an occurrence that affected or could have affected safety, short of that. Glossary
- Accident
- InvestigationHow far the investigation had got when the record was published: preliminary, ongoing, final or completed. Unknown where the source does not say. Glossary
- Completed
- API-reported fatalities
- 0 · all aircraft and ground
- Ground fatalities
- 0
- OperationWhat kind of flying it was, grouped by the rules it flew under: airline (US Part 121), air taxi and commuter (Part 135), general aviation (Part 91 and similar), military or government. Glossary
- General aviation
- WeatherVisual meteorological conditions (VMC): good enough to fly by looking outside. Instrument conditions (IMC): cloud or low visibility, flying by instruments. Glossary
- Visual Meteorological Cond
Quad City CHALLENGER
- Aircraft type
- Quad City CHALLENGER
- Category
- Ultralight
- RegistrationThe aircraft's tail number, such as N12345 or G-ABCD. Registrations are reissued, so the same one years apart can be a different aircraft. Glossary
- N100GB
- Operator
- Unknown
- Onboard fatalities
- Unknown
- Route
- From No airportTo not recorded
- Aircraft age
- Not recorded
- Flight rulesThe regulations the flight operated under: in the US, Part 91 (general aviation), Part 121 (airlines), Part 135 (air taxi and commuter) and others; for flights abroad, the NTSB's coarser commercial or non-commercial code. Glossary
- Part 91: General Aviation
- Phase of flightThe stage of the flight when things started to go wrong: standing, taxi, takeoff, initial climb, en route, maneuvering, approach or landing. Glossary
- Initial climb
- First occurrenceThe single coded event the NTSB judges best describes what happened (records from 2008 on). Older records name the first occurrence in the sequence instead. Glossary
- Loss of control in flight
- Also codedOther events the NTSB coded in the sequence, such as a wire strike after a loss of power. Flight Findings uses them for its kinds of event. Glossary
- Tree(s)
- DamageDestroyed: beyond practical repair. Substantial: damage that affects the structure, performance or handling and normally needs major repair. Minor: less than that. Glossary
- Destroyed
Cause areas
- Aircraft control › Not maintained
- Kit manufacturer › Acft/equip, inadequate design
Approximate · Coordinates as recorded by the NTSB; no uncertainty radius is established.
NTSB narrative
THE PILOT REPORTED THAT WHILE MAKING A RIGHT CLIMBING TURN AFTER TAKEOFF, APPROXIMATELY 500 FEET AGL, THE AIRPLANE STARTED TO BANK TO THE LEFT. DESPITE HIS USE OF FULL RIGHT RUDDER, HE WAS UNABLE TO REGAIN CONTROL. ACCORDING TO THE PILOT, 'THE PLANE KEPT TIGHTENING UP INTO A LEFT FLAT SPIRAL TO THE GROUND.' THE AIRPLANE HAD LEXAN DOORS INSTALLED TO ENCLOSE THE COCKPIT/CABIN AREA. THE DOORS WERE NOT INCLUDED IN THE ORIGINAL DESIGN OF THIS KIT AIRPLANE, BUT WERE SUBSEQUENTLY MADE AVAILABLE AS A STANDARD OR OPTIONAL FEATURE, DEPENDING ON THE MODEL. THE MANUFACTURER STATED THAT WHEN THE DOORS ARE INSTALLED, THE AIRPLANE BECOMES RUDDER DOMINANT AND SENSITIVE AND THAT PILOTS MUST NOT TAKE THEIR FEET OFF THE RUDDER PEDALS.
Probable cause
INADEQUATE DIRECTIONAL STABILITY OF THE AIRCRAFT (DUE TO INSTALLATION OF LEXAN COCKPIT ENCLOSURE DOORS), WHICH PRECIPITATED A LOSS OF DIRECTIONAL CONTROL.
Verbatim NTSB analysis and probable cause from the NTSB dataset
Sources
NTSB record CHI95LA144
- Event ID
- 20001207X03425
- Case number
- CHI95LA144
- Dataset
- historical-pre2008
- Source SHA-256
- 89e2df6d848e7ab3b42e7d7c7a03ff403303057a26ca04c95b3ea67201c3ce74
Source notes (4)
- Unreviewed is an editorial label, not an investigation status. API-sourced is not report-checked or human-reviewed. Explicit event totals are used without summing aircraft injury tables; onboard allocation is withheld. Unknown values remain unknown. The operation category is mapped from the NTSB-reported FAR part and has not been reviewed.
- Filled from the NTSB case API where the bulk record had no value: investigation status. Values present in the bulk record are kept.
- The date is the local date, which is the same as the UTC date the NTSB stores.
- API snapshot SHA-256: 0649decf1f78b7e15dcd9632b45f4b72e1b45e8755278b83973368701f94f87d; retrieved 2026-09-22T23:59:32.221Z.