ERA10LA221 · Czech Aircraft Works Spol SRO SPORTCRUISER
Lsa Czech Aircraft Works Spol SRO SPORTCRUISER · Accident: loss of control in flight during takeoff
From Sky Acres Airport (44N) to Sky Acres Airport (44N)
Event
- NTSB case
- ERA10LA221
- 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
Czech Aircraft Works Spol SRO SPORTCRUISER
- Aircraft type
- Czech Aircraft Works SPORTCRUISER
- 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
- N417VR
- Operator
- Lsa
- Onboard fatalities
- Unknown
- Route
- From Sky Acres Airport (44N), Millbrook, NYTo Sky Acres Airport (44N), Millbrook, NY
- 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
- Destroyed
Cause areas
- Aircraft › Aircraft oper/perf/capability
- Aircraft › Aircraft structures
Approximate · Coordinates as recorded by the NTSB; no uncertainty radius is established.
NTSB narrative
According to several witnesses, the airplane's engine sounded good during the takeoff roll, but at liftoff the wings were rocking and the airplane was not gaining altitude. They said that almost immediately, the airplane banked hard left back toward the airport, and disappeared from view. The sounds of impact were heard, and a fire ensued at ground contact that completely consumed the airplane. Some of the witnesses stated that they saw something fall off of or from the airplane during the turn. A firefighter who responded immediately to the scene said the pilot told him that he tried to hold the canopy shut and fly the airplane at the same time and did not lock the canopy.
Postaccident flight testing and information gathered from previous investigations (WPR09LA075 and WPR10LA276) revealed that an unlocked canopy remained slightly ajar in flight. Without being latched, the hinged canopy would rest in the fully closed position. After takeoff, the unlatched canopy lifted from the frame rail. Flight testing revealed that the relative airflow held the canopy in a lowered, slightly-open position, and that the airplane remained fully controllable. Following these three investigations, the manufacturer added a pre-takeoff canopy closed-and-locked check to the checklist, and a canopy unlocked in-flight procedure to the Pilot Operating Handbook.
Probable cause
The pilot's failure to maintain aircraft control after takeoff while he was distracted by trying to hold shut the unlocked cockpit canopy. Contributing to the accident was the pilot's failure to lock the canopy prior to takeoff, and the inadequate guidance in the Pilot Operating Handbook regarding canopy locking procedures.
Verbatim NTSB analysis and probable cause from the NTSB dataset
Sources
NTSB record ERA10LA221
- Event ID
- 20100411X73253
- Case number
- ERA10LA221
- Dataset
- full-current
- Source SHA-256
- 5cf380f0061817c0331a6b2d8cc7e0ee3a79bea469a1001dc5c10e56f35f5ab3
Source notes (5)
- 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: 3989d9dc2856d6f53b85d05e3bfd4ff59a33416c81def56934be54e42d667f73; retrieved 2026-09-15T13:50:54.182Z.
- Corrected after a review of the NTSB narrative, which states these values explicitly: departure, destination. Wrong state; 44N is Sky Acres Airport, Millbrook, New York, which the location field also records. Wrong state; 44N is Sky Acres Airport, Millbrook, New York, which the location field also records.