CHI08CA168 · Wolseley Motors, Inc. SE5-A
Wolseley Motors, Inc. SE5-A · Accident: loss of control in flight while maneuvering
From Freeman Municipal Airport (SER) to Freeman Municipal Airport (SER)
Event
- NTSB case
- CHI08CA168
- 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
Wolseley Motors, Inc. SE5-A
- Aircraft type
- Wolseley Motors SE5
- 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
- N93725
- Operator
- Unknown
- Onboard fatalities
- Unknown
- Route
- From Freeman Municipal Airport (SER), Seymour, INTo Freeman Municipal Airport (SER), Seymour, IN
- 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
- 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
- Aircraft › Aircraft power plant
- 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
The accident occurred during the second flight since manufacture/certification. The experimental amateur built airplane was a reproduction of a WWI British fighter that was in production 1916-1918. On the first flight, the pilot noted that forward stick pressure was needed to maintain level flight. The pilot/builder subsequently adjusted the horizontal stabilizer to increase the nose-down flight characteristics. On the second flight, the pilot stated that the takeoff was normal, but the airplane had a lower rate-of-climb and airspeed than the first flight. Upon reaching 2,000 feet, the pilot reduced engine power and noted having normal stick pressure to maintain a level flight attitude, but a 10 mph drop in airspeed and 100 feet per minute descent rate. The airspeed and altitude continued to decrease as he turned to the left. An increase in engine power did not result in an increase in airspeed or reduction of the descent rate. The pilot stated that the airplane continued to lose airspeed and altitude until about 30-40 feet about ground level when the right wing dropped and the airplane impacted terrain. The original airplane design incorporated an engine installation with a zero degree engine thrust angle. The accident airplane incorporated a different engine that resulted in a 12-degree engine thrust angle. The pilot/builder was unaware of the thrust angle differences until after the accident flight.
Probable cause
The pilot/builder's failure to manufacture the airplane with an appropriate engine thrust angle. Contributing to the accident was the pilot/builder's adjustment of the horizontal stabilizer which rendered the airplane uncontrollable.
Verbatim NTSB analysis and probable cause from the NTSB dataset
Sources
NTSB record CHI08CA168
- Event ID
- 20080811X01207
- Case number
- CHI08CA168
- 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: 62abf44d6f38997a94c88d81acce51870c25af663236a4ab3ab603b4d4963b3b; retrieved 2026-09-15T10:02:13.339Z.