CHI06CA126 · Helmetag Glassair III
Helmetag Glassair III · Accident: loss of control on ground/water during takeoff
From Aurora Municipal Airport (ARR) to Syracuse Hancock International Airport (SYR)
Event
- NTSB case
- CHI06CA126
- 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
Helmetag Glassair III
- Aircraft type
- Helmetag GLASSAIR
- 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
- N26H
- Operator
- Unknown
- Onboard fatalities
- Unknown
- Route
- From Aurora Municipal Airport (ARR), Aurora, ILTo Syracuse Hancock International Airport (SYR), Syracuse, NY
- 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 · roll/run
- 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 on ground/water
- 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 › Directional control, not maintained
Approximate · Coordinates from the NTSB case API, which marks them as estimated or does not say; no uncertainty radius is established.
NTSB narrative
The amateur-built airplane was substantially damaged during takeoff when the pilot lost directional control. The pilot stated, "During the takeoff roll the aircraft drifted left. I corrected and increased throttle." He reported that during the takeoff roll, the airplane continued to drift left, and he continued to correct. The pilot continued, "Near liftoff speed (80 kts), [the airplane] drifted again. I couldn't control the plane with full rudder or right brake. (It has no steerable nosewheel.) When the left wheel hit the grass, I lost control." The airplane subsequently impacted an airport sign during the runway excursion and came to rest in the grass adjacent to the runway. No damage consistent with a pre impact failure was observed during the post accident examination.
Probable cause
The pilot's failure to maintain directional control during the takeoff roll. A contributing factor was the airport sign impacted during the runway excursion.
Verbatim NTSB analysis and probable cause from the NTSB dataset
Sources
NTSB record CHI06CA126
- Event ID
- 20060512X00562
- Case number
- CHI06CA126
- 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: 5142ab14216d3f9132198478d3210b0f50b93aa893309f0abed71e98dea09638; retrieved 2026-09-22T04:56:25.364Z.