ERA09CA192 · Diamond Aircraft IND Inc DA 20-C1
Diamond Aircraft IND Inc DA 20-C1 · Accident: loss of control on ground during takeoff
From Morristown Municipal Airport (MMU) to Morristown Municipal Airport (MMU)
Event
- NTSB case
- ERA09CA192
- 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
Diamond Aircraft IND Inc DA 20-C1
- Aircraft type
- Diamond DA-20
- 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
- N176MA
- Operator
- Robert Haddow
- Onboard fatalities
- Unknown
- Route
- From Morristown Municipal Airport (MMU), Morristown, NJTo Morristown Municipal Airport (MMU), Morristown, NJ
- 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 on ground
- 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
- Personnel issues › Task performance
Approximate · Coordinates as recorded by the NTSB; no uncertainty radius is established.
NTSB narrative
The solo student pilot had accumulated a total of 14 flight hours at the time of the accident. For his second solo flight, he received a flight release from his instructor to conduct touch-and-go landings. During the first takeoff on runway 23, the student added full power for the takeoff roll. As the front wheel began to lift off, the airplane drifted off the left side of the 150-foot-wide runway. The left wing struck the runway distance sign marked "5," destroying the sign that was situated approximately 36 feet from the runway edge. The student "had no sensation of a collision," and conducted three touch-and-go landings and a full stop before he terminated the flight. The student told the controller in the air traffic control tower that he experienced a momentary loss of control. Damage to the wing was discovered when the student returned the airplane to the flight school. The leading edge of the left wing was damaged from the landing light inboard for approximately 3 feet. The inboard end of the damaged area exhibited splintering and separation of composite finish, binder, and cloth layers. The underside of the wing had an approximately 6-inch hole that also exhibited splintered layers of composite finish, binder, and cloth material. The manager of the flight school reported that there were no airplane malfunctions or mechanical failures either before or after the collision. The student indicated that the airport Automated Terminal Information Service reported winds to be from 210 degrees at 9 knots.
Probable cause
The student pilot's failure to maintain directional control during the takeoff roll.
Verbatim NTSB analysis and probable cause from the NTSB dataset
Sources
NTSB record ERA09CA192
- Event ID
- 20090310X81527
- Case number
- ERA09CA192
- 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: b3c1fd3308ca236b367c79699c5c221f5422da6a445f80d6ccd4561394c6a9a5; retrieved 2026-09-15T10:49:30.778Z.