MIA08CA064 · Clutton Eric Fred S1
Clutton Eric Fred S1 · Accident: loss of control in flight during takeoff
From Tullahoma Regional Airport William Northern Field (THA) to Tullahoma Regional Airport William Northern Field (THA)
Event
- NTSB case
- MIA08CA064
- 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
Clutton Eric Fred S1
- Aircraft type
- Clutton Eric FRED S1
- 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
- N4499Y
- Operator
- Eric Clutton
- Onboard fatalities
- Unknown
- Route
- From Tullahoma Regional Airport William Northern Field (THA), Tullahoma, TNTo Tullahoma Regional Airport William Northern Field (THA)
- 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
- Defining eventThe 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
- Personnel issues › Task performance
Approximate · Coordinates from the NTSB case API, which marks them as estimated or does not say; no uncertainty radius is established.
NTSB narrative
According to the pilot of the amateur built Fred S1 airplane, during takeoff roll and just as the main wheels left the runway, the airplane turned sharply right. He applied full left "stick" and got the wings level, but by then he was at a right angle to the runway with a good stretch of grass ahead, so he landed. The pilot stated that unfortunately the grass was swampy and the airplane nosed over onto it's back. The pilot exited from the open cockpit with no problem. The pilot further stated that there were no mechanical malfunctions noted with the airplane prior to the accident. Examination of the airplane by an Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) inspector found the vertical stabilizer crushed and partially separated from the airframe.
Probable cause
The pilot's failure to maintain control of the airplane during takeoff.
Verbatim NTSB analysis and probable cause from the NTSB dataset
Sources
NTSB record MIA08CA064
- Event ID
- 20080415X00487
- Case number
- MIA08CA064
- Dataset
- full-current
- Source SHA-256
- 5cf380f0061817c0331a6b2d8cc7e0ee3a79bea469a1001dc5c10e56f35f5ab3
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: ca51c83e5386f9e5f2e1c642035cf49e88f951e4c2ff2e339b4b07eeb666a5f6; retrieved 2026-09-15T09:32:25.370Z.