CHI02LA046 · Miller Lancair 235
Miller Lancair 235 · Accident: loss of control in flight during initial climb
From Merillat Airport (34G) to 69I · Batavia, OH
Event
- NTSB case
- CHI02LA046
- 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
Miller Lancair 235
- Aircraft type
- Miller LANCAIR 235
- 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
- N417EM
- Operator
- Unknown
- Onboard fatalities
- Unknown
- Route
- From Merillat Airport (34G), Tecumseh, MITo 69I · Batavia, OH
- 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
- 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 › Aircraft control, not maintained
Approximate · Coordinates as recorded by the NTSB; no uncertainty radius is established.
NTSB narrative
The pilot said, "With mixture full rich and full throttle I started my take off roll. After reaching 63 to 65 mph the aircraft became air born with slight back pressure on the stick. While trying to correct for cross wind from about 190 [degrees] to 195 [degrees], I noticed the aircraft was being blown to the right of the runway in the direction of a roll [row] of trees and the wind had shifted. At the same time, I noticed my airspeed was becoming to low so I lowered the nose of the aircraft to increse [increase] my airspeed. At this point it appeared the aircraft was heading back to the center of the runway when a gust of wind cought [caught] the right wing and blew the aircraft just enough for the left wing tip to touch the ground. At this time I lost all control of the aircraft." An examination of the airplane revealed no anomalies. The wind conditions recorded 8 minutes prior to the accident at Toledo Express Airport, Toledo, Ohio, 24 miles south of the accident site, were 210 degrees magnetic at 14 knots with gusts to 20 knots.
Probable cause
The pilot's failure to maintain aircraft control during the takeoff. Factors relating to the accident were the crosswind and the wind gusts.
Verbatim NTSB analysis and probable cause from the NTSB dataset
Sources
NTSB record CHI02LA046
- Event ID
- 20011211X02387
- Case number
- CHI02LA046
- 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: 800612949ac8424ea5344eb3601c2fcd57d7d0d5a497d1b5929cbbc8723ca8b5; retrieved 2026-09-22T11:17:18.724Z.