IAD05LA003 · Aero Commander 100
Allegheny Flying Club Aero Commander 100 · Accident: loss of control in flight during takeoff
From Allegheny County Airport (AGC) to an unrecorded destination
Event
- NTSB case
- IAD05LA003
- 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
Aero Commander 100
- Aircraft type
- Aero Commander 100
- 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
- N81DC
- Operator
- Allegheny Flying Club
- Onboard fatalities
- Unknown
- Route
- From Allegheny County Airport (AGC), Pittsburgh, PATo not recorded
- 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
- Takeoff
- 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(cfi) › Remedial action, delayed
Approximate · Coordinates from the NTSB case API, which marks them as estimated or does not say; no uncertainty radius is established.
NTSB narrative
About 10 feet above the runway, the airplane began a slow roll to the right. The student attempted to correct the roll and then transferred control of the airplane to the flight instructor. The flight instructor decreased the airplane's pitch angle to maintain airspeed. The airplane descended, while the flight instructor held full left aileron and left rudder to return to level flight. The airplane touched down about 50 yards to the right of the runway, at an angle about 30 degrees to the right of it. The flight instructor reduced engine power to idle and attempted to steer the airplane back toward the runway, but the right wing strut struck an electric fence post, and the airplane turned right, then impacted several trees. Examination of the airplane revealed that the aileron cables were intact, and control continuity was confirmed.
Probable cause
The delayed remedial action by the flight instructor.
Verbatim NTSB analysis and probable cause from the NTSB dataset
Sources
NTSB record IAD05LA003
- Event ID
- 20041019X01647
- Case number
- IAD05LA003
- 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, coordinates. 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: 489d1e405656d9b4ffb02137e3232246cf2b081c87881fee4335b39e28db0496; retrieved 2026-09-22T06:37:19.333Z.