ERA11LA048 · Bean R E/R B Weld Inc GLASAIR III
Bean R E/R B Weld Inc GLASAIR III · Accident: loss of control in flight while maneuvering
From Spruce Creek Airport (7FL6) to Bomar Field / Shelbyville Municipal Airport (SYI)
Event
- NTSB case
- ERA11LA048
- 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
Bean R E/R B Weld Inc GLASAIR III
- Aircraft type
- Bean R E/r B Weld GLASAIR
- 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
- N7SY
- Operator
- R B Weld
- Onboard fatalities
- Unknown
- Route
- From Spruce Creek Airport (7FL6), Port Orange, FLTo Bomar Field / Shelbyville Municipal Airport (SYI), Shelbyville, TN
- 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 · low-altitude flying
- 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
- Personnel issues › Action/decision
- Personnel issues › Psychological
Approximate · Coordinates as recorded by the NTSB; no uncertainty radius is established.
NTSB narrative
The accident airplane was one of two airplanes on a multi-leg, cross-country flight. The airplanes were operating at 2,500 feet mean sea level (msl), at 200 knots, with an overcast cloud layer about 300 feet above them. The pilots encountered deteriorating weather conditions about 40 miles prior to a planned fuel stop. The lead pilot turned to its left, and according to data extracted from the GPS receiver on board, the accident pilot initiated a climb, and then a course reversal to the right. During the turn to the right, the airplane climbed to nearly 3,800 feet, slowed to 144 knots, descended to 2,000 feet and accelerated to 255 knots, climbed back to 4,000 feet and slowed to 39 knots at the second-to-last data plot which was in the vicinity of the crash site. Two witnesses said they heard the airplane, and one witness observed it before ground contact. Examination of the crash site and the wreckage revealed damage to the trees and the airplane that were consistent with a near vertical descent and engine power at impact. The pilot of the lead airplane stated that he checked the weather prior to their departure, and that the weather conditions were clear all the way to their destination. However, AIRMETs for icing conditions from the surface to 10,000 feet, as well as for mountain obscuration due to clouds and precipitation were current along the planned route of flight in the area surrounding the accident site. The airplane's rapid, near-vertical descent, turning ground track and the meteorological conditions are consistent with the pilot's loss of control of the airplane due to spatial disorientation.
Probable cause
The pilot's inadvertent climb and entry into instrument meteorological conditions during a course reversal, which resulted in spatial disorientation and a loss of control.
Verbatim NTSB analysis and probable cause from the NTSB dataset
Sources
NTSB record ERA11LA048
- Event ID
- 20101105X53437
- Case number
- ERA11LA048
- 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: d11dd841e8246bfc9172698b5e11ba4cb3434918f325dcefd3bdd3e9bcb06c26; retrieved 2026-09-13T21:07:23.236Z.