SEA01LA141 · Taylor Smith Mini DSA-1
Taylor Smith Mini DSA-1 · Accident: airframe, component or system failure
From Ephrata Municipal Airport (EPH) to Sky Harbor Airport (S86)
Event
- NTSB case
- SEA01LA141
- 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
- Unknown
- 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
Taylor Smith Mini DSA-1
- Aircraft type
- Taylor SMITH MINI DSA-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
- N53BT
- Operator
- Unknown
- Onboard fatalities
- Unknown
- Route
- From Ephrata Municipal Airport (EPH), ePHRATA, WATo Sky Harbor Airport (S86), Sultan, WA
- 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
- Unknown
- 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
- Airframe, component or system failure
- 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
- Miscellaneous, bolt/nut/fastener/clamp/spring › Separation
Approximate · Coordinates as recorded by the NTSB; no uncertainty radius is established.
NTSB narrative
While flying westbound along US Highway 2, the pilot made an elevator input in the homebuilt, experimentally certificated Smith Mini DSA-1 aircraft, and became aware that the control stick had no effect on pitch attitude. After an initial climb, the aircraft transitioned into a descent and the pilot retarded the throttle to idle and bailed out, parachuting safely to the ground. A post-crash examination was unable to locate the one-quarter inch diameter bolt, which connects the control stick push rod to the elevator actuating bellcrank. The loss of this bolt would result in a disconnection between the pilot's control stick and the elevator, and the subsequent inability by the pilot to maintain pitch control of the aircraft.
Probable cause
The separation/loss of the bolt and castle nut which connected the elevator bellcrank to the control stick pushrod resulting in a disconnect between the cockpit and the control surface and ultimately, the pilot's total loss of pitch control.
Verbatim NTSB analysis and probable cause from the NTSB dataset
Sources
NTSB record SEA01LA141
- Event ID
- 20010724X01503
- Case number
- SEA01LA141
- 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: local date, investigation status. Values present in the bulk record are kept.
- The date is the local date; the NTSB stores the UTC date 2001-07-22.
- API snapshot SHA-256: f9e82351b28aa90aac32d40db4074f494352850d068a51619139dd073b5d1ad7; retrieved 2026-09-22T11:44:21.994Z.