LAX06LA041 · Tingle Special
Tingle Special · Accident: loss of control in flight during initial climb
From La Cholla Airpark (57AZ) to Sky Ranch At Carefree Airport (18AZ)
Event
- NTSB case
- LAX06LA041
- 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
- 2 · 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
Tingle Special
- Aircraft type
- Tingle SPECIAL
- 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
- N660T
- Operator
- Thomas H. Tingle · private individual
- Onboard fatalities
- Unknown
- Route
- From La Cholla Airpark (57AZ), Tucson, AZTo Sky Ranch At Carefree Airport (18AZ), Carefree, AZ
- 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
- 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
- Destroyed
Cause areas
- Pilot in command › Aborted takeoff, not performed
- Pilot in command › Aircraft control, not maintained
- Pilot in command › Directional control, not maintained
- Pilot in command › Throttle/power control, excessive
- Pilot in command › Torque/p-factor, excessive
Approximate · Coordinates from the NTSB case API, which marks them as estimated or does not say; no uncertainty radius is established.
NTSB narrative
The airplane entered a torque roll to the left during the initial climb shortly after takeoff. Numerous pilot witnesses observed the composite airplane on takeoff roll when the airplane began to drift to the left of centerline. Some observed dust below the left wing from the left main landing gear tire rolling in the dirt. The airplane lifted off the ground in a nose high pitch attitude and rolled 90 degrees to the left in a knife-edge turn. The airplane then continued to an inverted position, descended at a 45-degree nose low pitch attitude, and impacted the ground. All of the witnesses indicated that the engine seemed to be at full power during the entire event. Measurements of tire marks on the runway and tire tracks in the dirt to the east of the runway, indicated that the pilot continued with the takeoff roll even though the airplane was well east of the runway centerline and even departed the runway surface to the east. According to the airplane kit manufacturer, takeoffs with more than 70 percent torque were not recommended until the airplane reached 100 knots indicated airspeed. The kit manufacturer added that if one were to takeoff with more than 70-percent torque, below 100 knots, there would not be enough rudder authority to offset the torque/p-factor of the 725-horsepower engine/propeller. There was no record in the FAA database of the airplane receiving an experimental airworthiness certificate nor was there an endorsement in the logbook indicating that the pilot/builder had flown the requisite 40 hours of test flights prior to carrying passengers. The airplane was destroyed by impact and fire damage. The FAA inspector who responded to the accident site reported finding no anomalies with the identifiable components that would have prevented normal flight.
Probable cause
The pilot's excessive use of power during takeoff, which resulted in an inadvertent torque roll shortly after lift off. Also causal was the pilot's failure to abort the takeoff when directional control could not be maintained during the takeoff roll.
Verbatim NTSB analysis and probable cause from the NTSB dataset
Sources
NTSB record LAX06LA041
- Event ID
- 20051123X01883
- Case number
- LAX06LA041
- 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: f5017c3d14694b5df998a161968990d4613209c242a2207e4ebbc01f0c018064; retrieved 2026-09-20T17:45:14.793Z.