ERA09FA087 · Ercoupe 415-D
Ercoupe 415-D · Accident: aircraft structural failure while maneuvering
From Avon Park Executive Airport (AVO) to Avon Park Executive Airport (AVO)
Event
- NTSB case
- ERA09FA087
- 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
- 2 · 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
Ercoupe 415-D
- Aircraft type
- Ercoupe 415
- 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
- N99154
- Operator
- Unknown
- Onboard fatalities
- Unknown
- Route
- From Avon Park Executive Airport (AVO), Avon Park, FLTo Avon Park Executive Airport (AVO), Avon Park, FL
- 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
- 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 structures
- Personnel issues › Action/decision
Approximate · Coordinates from the NTSB case API, which marks them as estimated or does not say; no uncertainty radius is established.
NTSB narrative
Witnesses observed the accident airplane as it performed a low-level, local flight in the vicinity of the passenger's home. The witnesses reported that the airplane entered a high-speed dive before pulling up and rolling steeply left. One of the witnesses reported that both ailerons were "fluttering" just before both wings separated from the fuselage and the airplane broke up. Examination of the wreckage revealed that the wing spar failed in overload at its center, in an aft and downward direction. Though a hole not specified in the design of the airplane was present at the point where the separation of the spar began, its effect on the preaccident structural strength of the spar could not be determined. No corrosion or evidence of a fatigue failure was observed in the vicinity of the initial separation.
Probable cause
The pilot's exceedance of the design stress limitations of the airplane.
Verbatim NTSB analysis and probable cause from the NTSB dataset
Sources
NTSB record ERA09FA087
- Event ID
- 20081213X62443
- Case number
- ERA09FA087
- 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: b3cbecdff1241da5b7f759d31235a8cfee9126271eb7d9a24ae5e9e40010fbf8; retrieved 2026-09-13T19:51:58.957Z.