ERA11LA023 · Bobo Christopher J LOEHLE 5151
Bobo Christopher J LOEHLE 5151 · Accident: loss of control in flight en route
From Carthage, NC to Maxton, NC
Event
- NTSB case
- ERA11LA023
- 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
Bobo Christopher J LOEHLE 5151
- Aircraft type
- Bobo Christopher LOEHLE 5151
- 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
- N838B
- Operator
- Cox Keith A
- Onboard fatalities
- Unknown
- Route
- From Carthage, NCTo Maxton, NC
- 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
- En route · cruise
- 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 structures
- Aircraft › Aircraft systems
- Not determined › Not determined
Approximate · Coordinates as recorded by the NTSB; no uncertainty radius is established.
NTSB narrative
The accident pilot was flying in formation with another pilot, en route to a private airstrip. About 10 minutes after departure, the accident pilot reported on the common traffic advisory frequency that his wings were fluttering and that he was losing control of the airplane. The other pilot told him to reduce the power and try to land on the road below. He then observed the accident airplane in a slow, banking turn, appearing to line up for a landing on the road. The accident pilot announced that he was unable to maintain control of the airplane, and witnesses observed the ailerons fluttering before the airplane appeared to stall and descend vertically to the ground. The airplane, constructed of wood and fabric, shattered into multiple wood fragments upon impact; however, examination of the fracture surfaces and structure of the wings revealed damage consistent with both wings and ailerons being attached to the airframe at the time of impact. Additionally, flight control continuity was confirmed from the cockpit to the aileron flight controls. The most recent recorded maintenance performed on the airplane was its Phase 1 condition inspection completed about 3 weeks prior to the accident. During this inspection, the flight controls were inspected and lubricated. Due to the severe impact damage, the source of the wing flutter and control problem reported by the pilot was not identified.
Probable cause
The reported fluttering of the wings in flight and the pilot's subsequent in-flight loss of control for undetermined reasons.
Verbatim NTSB analysis and probable cause from the NTSB dataset
Sources
NTSB record ERA11LA023
- Event ID
- 20101017X81620
- Case number
- ERA11LA023
- 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: e7fd0d2cec69d929e2b8b365c37e0141d8f7e9d5e3a0ba2a8e0831bcb09ddf64; retrieved 2026-09-15T15:29:10.153Z.