CEN11FA346 · Hansen IB C CASSUTT III M
Hansen IB C CASSUTT III M · Accident: loss of control in flight during initial climb
From Erie Municipal Airport (KEIK) to Erie Municipal Airport (KEIK)
Event
- NTSB case
- CEN11FA346
- 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
- 1 · 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
Hansen IB C CASSUTT III M
- Aircraft type
- Hansen Ib CASSUTT
- 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
- N420FH
- Operator
- Hansen Ib
- Onboard fatalities
- Unknown
- Route
- From Erie Municipal Airport (KEIK), Erie, COTo Erie Municipal Airport (KEIK), Erie, CO
- 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
- Initial climb
- 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
- Personnel issues › Physical
Approximate · Coordinates from the NTSB case API, not marked as estimated; no uncertainty radius is established.
NTSB narrative
During the initial takeoff on the airplane's maiden flight, witnesses observed the airplane climb to about 300 feet above ground level, turn left, descend and impact the ground. A postaccident examination of the airplane and engine did not reveal any anomalies. An autopsy revealed that that the pilot's left anterior descending artery had up to 70-percent stenosis with 100-percent stenosis in many of the branches. With a lack of control-type injuries to the pilot's extremities, the medical examiner concluded that it was possible that the pilot experienced a sudden cardiac death shortly after takeoff.
Probable cause
The pilot's incapacitation due to a cardiac event.
Verbatim NTSB analysis and probable cause from the NTSB dataset
Sources
NTSB record CEN11FA346
- Event ID
- 20110523X91400
- Case number
- CEN11FA346
- 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, coordinates. 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: f1c23c328fb375f16fd43fba4ef39bee331704a25275705e8a06cfc47d1d5259; retrieved 2026-09-13T21:25:36.696Z.