ERA11LA403 · Murphy Aircraft Elite
Murphy Aircraft Elite · Accident: loss of control in flight during initial climb
From Genesee County Airport (GVQ) to Genesee County Airport (GVQ)
Event
- NTSB case
- ERA11LA403
- 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
Murphy Aircraft Elite
- Aircraft type
- Murphy ELITE
- 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
- N113SM
- Operator
- Patrick McCabe
- Onboard fatalities
- Unknown
- Route
- From Genesee County Airport (GVQ), Batavia, NYTo Genesee County Airport (GVQ), Batavia, 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
- 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
- Aircraft › Aircraft oper/perf/capability
- Personnel issues › Task performance
Approximate · Coordinates from the NTSB case API, which marks them as estimated or does not say; no uncertainty radius is established.
NTSB narrative
The pilot was flying the airplane for its first flight after being "rebuilt." After a preflight inspection, which included engine run-ups and a high-speed taxi, the pilot commenced the takeoff. When the airplane was about 8 to 10 inches off the ground, the pilot felt the airplane being pulled up and to the left. He lost control of the airplane, and the left wing struck the ground. The airplane nosed over and came to rest off the left side of the runway. A postaccident examination revealed substantial damage to the fuselage and empennage. Postaccident examination verified flight control continuity to the rudder and elevator. Further examination of the aileron revealed that the aileron control rod end fractured due to overstress during the impact sequence.
Probable cause
The pilot's failure to maintain control of the airplane during takeoff.
Verbatim NTSB analysis and probable cause from the NTSB dataset
Sources
NTSB record ERA11LA403
- Event ID
- 20110716X02611
- Case number
- ERA11LA403
- 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: local date, investigation status, coordinates. Values present in the bulk record are kept.
- The date is the local date; the NTSB stores the UTC date 2011-07-16.
- API snapshot SHA-256: f1a292872b685c372ad875c406122c25cccaca2745ac0cb32c452a15ff28c41d; retrieved 2026-09-15T16:27:41.748Z.