CHI96LA069 · Taylorcraft BC-12
Taylorcraft BC-12 · Accident: loss of control in flight during initial climb
From an unrecorded airport to SD39 · WINNER AIRPORT, SD
Event
- NTSB case
- CHI96LA069
- 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
Taylorcraft BC-12
- Aircraft type
- Taylorcraft BC-12
- Category
- Airplane
- 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
- N39244
- Operator
- Unknown
- Onboard fatalities
- Unknown
- Route
- From not recordedTo SD39 · WINNER AIRPORT, SD
- 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
- Stall/spin
- DamageDestroyed: beyond practical repair. Substantial: damage that affects the structure, performance or handling and normally needs major repair. Minor: less than that. Glossary
- Substantial
Cause areas
- Pilot in command › Airspeed, not obtained/maintained
Approximate · Coordinates as recorded by the NTSB; no uncertainty radius is established.
NTSB narrative
THE PILOT REPORTED THAT HE HAD TROUBLE GETTING THE ENGINE STARTED. DURING THE INITIAL CLIMB HE FELT THAT THE ENGINE WAS NOT GIVING QUITE THE FULL POWER HE EXPECTED. HE TRIED TO CHECK THE MAGNETOS AND CARBURETOR HEAT DURING THE TAKEOFF CLIMB. HE STATED THAT HE WAS NOT PAYING ATTENTION TO WHAT HE WAS DOING, AND THAT HE, '...BASICALLY JUST STALLED IT AND SPUN IT INTO THE GROUND.' HE HAD OWNED THE AIRPLANE FOR ABOUT A MONTH, AND HAD 30 HOURS TOTAL TIME IN THE AIRPLANE WHICH INCLUDED 10 HOURS OF DUAL. A WITNESS REPORTED THAT THE AIRPLANE DID NOT USE MORE THAN 100 YARDS DURING THE GROUND RUN, AND THAT THE WING AND TAIL SECTION WERE VIBRATING 'PRETTY ROUGH' DURING THE TAKEOFF FROM THE STUBBLE FIELD. THE AIRPLANE BANKED HARD LEFT, AND THEN CUT BACK HARD TO THE RIGHT BEFORE IT WENT STRAIGHT OVER AND NOSED STRAIGHT IN. THE WITNESS REPORTED THAT THE AIRPLANE HAD CLIMBED ABOUT 150 FEET. THE ENGINE WAS EXAMINED AND HAD CONTINUITY. THE COMPRESSION CHECKED NORMAL.
Probable cause
the pilot's failure to maintain airspeed during takeoff. A factor was the pilot's diversion of his attention to a perceived engine problem.
Verbatim NTSB analysis and probable cause from the NTSB dataset
Sources
NTSB record CHI96LA069
- Event ID
- 20001207X04986
- Case number
- CHI96LA069
- 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: 08a96d21998333ab3893efcee97a79d5c43b40942fa2fd3b9342de86fb2070ef; retrieved 2026-09-21T12:56:12.329Z.