FTW96LA320 · Qualline HATZ CB-1
Qualline HATZ CB-1 · Accident: loss of control in flight while maneuvering
From Kerrville / Kerr County Airport at Louis Schreiner Field (ERV) to Freedom Springs Ranch Airport (TA66)
Event
- NTSB case
- FTW96LA320
- 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
- 2 · 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
Qualline HATZ CB-1
- Aircraft type
- Qualline HATZ CB-1
- 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
- N485D
- Operator
- Unknown
- Onboard fatalities
- Unknown
- Route
- From Kerrville / Kerr County Airport at Louis Schreiner Field (ERV), Kerrville, TXTo Freedom Springs Ranch Airport (TA66)
- 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
- Maneuvering
- 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
- 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
- Reason for occurrence undetermined
Approximate · Coordinates as recorded by the NTSB; no uncertainty radius is established.
NTSB narrative
A private pilot and an airline transport pilot (ATP) took off on a flight in a homebuilt airplane that had only about 3 hours of flight time. According to witnesses, the ATP had made the initial test flights of the airplane, but the owner was the pilot-in-command (PIC) on this flight. Witnesses at the airport saw the homebuilt airplane in a landing approach, heard engine power increase, and watched the airplane climb out to the northeast. A witness, who was driving his vehicle on a road about 1 mile north of the airport observed, the airplane impact the road 'nose first' and then it began burning. The investigation did not determine which pilot was flying at the time of the accident. According to a nurse, who cared for the private pilot during a postaccident air ambulance ride, he said 'I was going through 300 feet, and I lost the elevator, and we came straight down.' Postaccident examination of the airplane, revealed continuity to all flight controls. Examination of the engine revealed no preimpact mechanical discrepancy. Comparison of the airplane's estimated weight and balance at the time of the accident to figures provided by an individual who had built several Hatz airplanes indicated the airplane was loaded within 'normal' limits. There was insufficient evidence available to determine the reason for the reported loss of elevator control.
Probable cause
loss of aircraft control in flight for undetermined reason(s).
Verbatim NTSB analysis and probable cause from the NTSB dataset
Sources
NTSB record FTW96LA320
- Event ID
- 20001208X06240
- Case number
- FTW96LA320
- 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: 6250c9ba9da07c084e3715b22610950a405192459663a251cd991ce42a05915b; retrieved 2026-09-20T23:15:18.940Z.