CHI08LA040 · Czech Aircraft Works Sport Cruiser
Czech Aircraft Works Sport Cruiser · Accident: loss of control in flight during initial climb
From Waukegan National Airport (UGN) to Waukegan National Airport (UGN)
Event
- NTSB case
- CHI08LA040
- 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
Czech Aircraft Works Sport Cruiser
- Aircraft type
- Czech Aircraft Works SPORT CRUISER
- 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
- N947DM
- Operator
- Unknown
- Onboard fatalities
- Unknown
- Route
- From Waukegan National Airport (UGN), Waukegan, ILTo Waukegan National Airport (UGN)
- 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
- Flt control syst, yoke/control stick › Foreign object
- Flt control syst, yoke/control stick › Jammed
- Pilot in command › Aircraft control, not possible
- Pilot in command › Equipment, other, not verified
Approximate · Coordinates from the NTSB case API, which marks them as estimated or does not say; no uncertainty radius is established.
NTSB narrative
The takeoff was being made on runway 23. Upon takeoff the airplane began drifting to the right. The pilot applied left aileron and rudder, and the airplane started "banking hard right." He then applied full throttle and full left aileron, but the right bank angle kept increasing. The pilot reported that he kept the nose of the airplane up by applying left rudder, but the airplane continued to lose altitude. The right wing then contacted the runway and the airplane came to rest after having completed a 360 degree turn. Prior to the flight the pilot was working on the airplane and had used a magnetic block to magnetize a screwdriver. When finished, he set the block on the copilot seat and forgot about it. Following the accident the magnetic block was found lodged between the control stick and its mounting. This resulted in restricted movement of the control stick. The local winds were reported as being variable from 240 degrees to 310 degrees with gusts to 21 knots. The pilot reported the windsock showed the winds were from 270 degrees when he initiated his takeoff.
Probable cause
The pilot's failure to assure that all of his tools were accounted for prior to takeoff which resulted in the foreign object jamming the control stick and the pilot's inability to maintain control of the airplane. A factor associated with the accident was the strong, gusty crosswind condition.
Verbatim NTSB analysis and probable cause from the NTSB dataset
Sources
NTSB record CHI08LA040
- Event ID
- 20071126X01844
- Case number
- CHI08LA040
- 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: d24612f1fd237922148e591ee99d9908478ec6798dedf054be55b6a95a649b4b; retrieved 2026-09-22T03:16:37.209Z.