FTW02LA041 · Globe GC-1B
Globe GC-1B · Accident: loss of control in flight during initial climb
From Zuehl Airport (1TE4) to Harris County ESD #80 Heliport (6TA4)
Event
- NTSB case
- FTW02LA041
- 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
Globe GC-1B
- Aircraft type
- Globe GC-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
- N3209K
- Operator
- John W. Saunders III · private individual
- Onboard fatalities
- Unknown
- Route
- From Zuehl Airport (1TE4), San Antonio, TXTo Harris County ESD #80 Heliport (6TA4), Eagle Pass, TX
- 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; 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
- Substantial
Cause areas
- Pilot in command › Stall, inadvertent
Approximate · Coordinates as recorded by the NTSB; no uncertainty radius is established.
NTSB narrative
During the initial takeoff climb from the 3,000-foot grass runway, the airplane veered to the left toward a building and trees. The private pilot stated that he "may have stalled the [air]plane," since his pilot-rated passenger reported that the airplane had a "sharp, left wing drop stall." The airplane then impacted and continued through a chain link fence and impacted a tree. The pilot had not flown this make and model aircraft before and had accumulated a total of 126.2 flight hours. The pilot reported that he had obtained his tail-wheel endorsement 13 days prior to the accident. Examination of the aircraft and engine revealed no evidence of any anomalies.
Probable cause
the pilot's inadvertent stall during takeoff, which resulted in a loss of control and the airplane colliding with a fence and a tree. A contributing factor was his lack of experience in the make and model of aircraft.
Verbatim NTSB analysis and probable cause from the NTSB dataset
Sources
NTSB record FTW02LA041
- Event ID
- 20011127X02298
- Case number
- FTW02LA041
- 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: e6e80bde72c34a91fcbf2375a5de983f9d0f06e73f8c0fd2fca39eea0461e8d2; retrieved 2026-09-21T09:43:34.858Z.