CHI01LA212 · Reitz Mohawk 1
Reitz Mohawk 1 · Accident: loss of control in flight during initial climb
From H21 · Camdenton, MO to Camdenton, MO
Event
- NTSB case
- CHI01LA212
- 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
- 1 · 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
Reitz Mohawk 1
- Aircraft type
- Reitz MOHAWK 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
- N109WR
- Operator
- Unknown
- Onboard fatalities
- Unknown
- Route
- From H21 · Camdenton, MOTo Camdenton, MO
- 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; Wire, transmission
- 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
- Pilot in command › Aborted takeoff, not performed
- Pilot in command › Airspeed, not maintained
Approximate · Coordinates as recorded by the NTSB; no uncertainty radius is established.
NTSB narrative
The experimental amateur built airplane was destroyed by impact with a transmission wire, with terrain, and by fire following an in-flight loss of control during climbout. An interview with a witness who had test flown the accident aircraft that morning, noted that, "On the final flight [the witness] found it controllable, but very sensitive to elevator inputs and almost unresponsive to rudder input during flight. [The witness] said he only flew it around the traffic pattern once that morning. ... [The witness] told [the owner] it was OK for taxi, but not safe to fly, and [the owner] departed to taxi it up and down the runway. After some taxiing on the runway, [the witness] observed the aircraft lift-off from runway 15, yaw noticeably to the left, recover and continue climbing out. About 1/2 mile away, he observed it begin a turn to the left, pitch up, stall, and begin a spin to the right. He said it did about 3/4 of a full right spin, disappeared behind trees off the end of the runway and exploded, apparently on impact with the ground." The wind was 140 degrees at 3 knots. The Sheriff's stated, "The craft was located in a field South of [road] 5-120 near Show Me Electrics power lines. ... It appears that the craft struck the ground finally resting on it's top. ... That prior to the craft making contact with the ground it appears that the leading edge of the left wing struck the 'Center Phase' power line approx nine feet from the wing tip."
Probable cause
The pilot not performing an aborted takeoff and the inadvertent stall he encountered on his inadvertent initial climb. Factors were his inadvertent lift-off, the reported inadequate rudder control, his inadvertent flight with known deficiencies, and the transmission wire.
Verbatim NTSB analysis and probable cause from the NTSB dataset
Sources
NTSB record CHI01LA212
- Event ID
- 20010726X01522
- Case number
- CHI01LA212
- 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: 507ac6ee4fb3bd9a061e0a44addb7f3b6fb88935f1a3af2e298480ed4f5ed766; retrieved 2026-09-20T20:27:52.289Z.