ATL07CA095 · Zaverton Elmer PJ260 SR Aero Sport
Zaverton Elmer PJ260 SR Aero Sport · Accident: loss of control in flight while maneuvering
From Beltzville Airport (14N) to Beltzville Airport (14N)
Event
- NTSB case
- ATL07CA095
- 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
Zaverton Elmer PJ260 SR Aero Sport
- Aircraft type
- Zaverton Elmer PJ260
- 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
- N85136
- Operator
- William Francis Vose
- Onboard fatalities
- Unknown
- Route
- From Beltzville Airport (14N), Lehighton, PATo Beltzville Airport (14N), Lehighton, PA
- 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
- Maneuvering
- 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/spin; 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 › Airspeed(vs), not maintained
- Pilot in command › Stall/spin, inadvertent
Approximate · Coordinates from the NTSB case API, which marks them as estimated or does not say; no uncertainty radius is established.
NTSB narrative
A commercial pilot was flying with the student pilot/airplane owner on a demonstration flight. In statements provided to the NTSB investigator-in-charge, the pilots contradicted each other on who was flying the airplane immediately prior to the accident. The student pilot said the commercial pilot was flying, and allowed the airplane to get too slow, and the airplane stalled and entered a flat spin. The commercial pilot said the student pilot demonstrated a stall, failed to recover, and the airplane entered a flat spin. Both pilots agree that the student was on the controls during the attempted spin recovery. The airplane did not recover from the spin, and collided with trees, sustaining substantial damage to the wings and fuselage. A postaccident inspection by an FAA inspector disclosed no evidence of any preimpact mechanical anomalies. The commercial pilot stated that he was unaware that the student pilot was not a certificated pilot.
Probable cause
The failure of the pilot to maintain sufficient airspeed while maneuvering to avoid a stall, which resulted in an inadvertent stall/spin, and collision with trees and terrain.
Verbatim NTSB analysis and probable cause from the NTSB dataset
Sources
NTSB record ATL07CA095
- Event ID
- 20070725X01014
- Case number
- ATL07CA095
- 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: 5b7f2c44ba77b9923d028b22412773fa6724423c2d9920f1388a74f91870624e; retrieved 2026-09-21T18:28:43.064Z.