SEA08FA196 · Debus J / Mountain S / Bowes E DEBUS-CASST-SNOSHOO
Debus J / Mountain S / Bowes E DEBUS-CASST-SNOSHOO · Accident: aircraft structural failure while maneuvering
From 4SD · Reno, NV to an unrecorded destination
Event
- NTSB case
- SEA08FA196
- 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
- 1 · 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
Debus J / Mountain S / Bowes E DEBUS-CASST-SNOSHOO
- Aircraft type
- Debus J / Mountain S / Bowes DEBUS-CASST-SNOSHOO
- 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
- N102MB
- Operator
- Erica Simpson
- Onboard fatalities
- Unknown
- Route
- From 4SD · Reno, NVTo not recorded
- 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 · aerobatics
- 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
- Aircraft structural failure
- 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 oper/perf/capability
- Aircraft › Aircraft structures
Approximate · Coordinates as recorded by the NTSB; no uncertainty radius is established.
NTSB narrative
During an air race class qualification flight, the pilot was performing a series of maneuvers required to obtain a class license. During a required roll maneuver, as the airplane passed through about 90 to 120 degrees of roll at an estimated speed of 220 to 230 miles per hour, the right wing separated from the airframe, followed almost immediately by the left wing. The amateur built experimental airplane was fitted with an in-flight adjustable pitch trim system, which was a deviation from the original ground-only trim adjustment design. The trim system, designed by the airplane's builder, allowed the pilot to adjust the pitch trim by moving the horizontal stabilizer in flight. The in-flight system was composed of a lever attached to the fuselage structure, and its movement was restricted with friction washers between the fuselage and the lever. Full travel of the lever resulted in one inch of vertical movement of the horizontal stabilizer's leading edge. The manufacturer of the airframe kit stated that the trim system installed on the accident airplane was not of their design. They further stated that any movement of the horizontal stabilizer during an abrupt maneuver could produce an extremely high amount of G-forces and possibly exceed the structural design limits of the airplane. Post accident examination of the wreckage revealed no evidence of pre-existing anomalies with the airframe or flight control system. The wooden wing spar was tested and found to be of proper grade wood. No anomalies were noted with the spar material. The fracture surfaces of both the left and right wing forward wing spars were consistent with a "substantial upward force" and overload. It is unknown if the horizontal trim system was moved in-flight by commanded or uncommanded action. Amateur built airplanes with experimental certificates are not subject to the airworthiness standards in 14 CFR Parts 23 and 47 of the Federal Aviation Regulations, and builders and owners are free to make any modifications to the airplane at will.
Probable cause
The movement of the airplane’s modified horizontal stabilizer trim system during an intentional high speed aerobatic maneuver that resulted in exceedence of the design stress limits of the airplane and an in-flight structural failure. Contrubuting to the accident was that the builder’s deviation from the airplane designer's original trim system.
Verbatim NTSB analysis and probable cause from the NTSB dataset
Sources
NTSB record SEA08FA196
- Event ID
- 20080917X01476
- Case number
- SEA08FA196
- 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. 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: 52622407dc59deb9bf55ef5a671853a9a75ab98cc567c5dee549ae2b7e56bc7c; retrieved 2026-09-13T19:27:27.049Z.