ERA11LA033 · Rockwell International 112TC
Kalunji Aviation Group Rockwell International 112TC · Accident: flight control system malfunction/failure while maneuvering
From 9A1 · Covington, GA to Jim Hamilton L.B. Owens Airport (CUB)
Event
- NTSB case
- ERA11LA033
- 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
Rockwell International 112TC
- Aircraft type
- Rockwell 112
- 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
- N1154J
- Operator
- Kalunji Aviation Group
- Onboard fatalities
- Unknown
- Route
- From 9A1 · Covington, GATo Jim Hamilton L.B. Owens Airport (CUB), Columbia, SC
- 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
- Flight control system malfunction/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
- Not determined › Not determined
- Personnel issues › Miscellaneous
- Personnel issues › Task performance
Approximate · Coordinates as recorded by the NTSB; no uncertainty radius is established.
NTSB narrative
The pilot completed several touch-and-go takeoffs and landings at his home airport before departing on a cross-country flight. While in cruise flight, he declared an emergency due to a lack of elevator and aileron control. He attempted to troubleshoot the problem over the radio with air traffic controllers and other pilots on his assigned frequency. The pilot made multiple approaches but could not complete the landing before he began to run out of daylight and his fuel state became critical. He maneuvered the airplane south of the airport toward a wooded area away from homes. About 1,500 feet above ground level, the airplane's fuel supply was exhausted, the engine stopped producing power, and the pilot parachuted from the airplane, using a recently purchased parachute that he had brought on board. The airplane departed controlled flight and descended to the ground; the pilot suffered no injuries.
Four days prior to the accident, the accident pilot appeared at a parachute school with an emergency parachute rig and asked the owner/instructor of the school to teach him how to deploy the parachute. According to the owner/instructor, when he asked the pilot why he needed an emergency parachute, the pilot stated he was a pilot flying out of a nearby Air Force base and that he flew L-39 jets, acting as the “rabbit” for Marine pilots to chase him in dog-fight training. The instructor thought it was strange that the pilot had not gone to jump school, and the pilot stated it was not required. He added that the airplanes he was flying for the Marines did not have ejection seats, and if he needed to get out, he would have to climb out.
A detailed examination of the airplane revealed no evidence of any binding or restriction of movement of the elevator or elevator trim surfaces, no evidence of cable interference from foreign objects, no evidence of any binding or restriction of movement of the internal pulleys or cables, and the cables, turnbuckles, and cable pulleys were in good condition and moved freely. Examination of the instruments mounted in the instrument panel revealed that the serial numbers on the air pressure instruments matched the serial numbers of the air pressure instruments that the pilot/owner reported stolen in July 2010.
Probable cause
The pilot’s deliberate exiting of the airplane by parachute while in flight following a reported flight control malfunction that could not be verified.
Verbatim NTSB analysis and probable cause from the NTSB dataset
Sources
NTSB record ERA11LA033
- Event ID
- 20101021X05628
- Case number
- ERA11LA033
- 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: 9fad657bfef36b7a7ec2443e203a66304ff8ddaaad780179df4bdf88ae696d8c; retrieved 2026-09-15T15:30:09.336Z.