ERA11FA426 · Taylorcraft BL-65
Taylorcraft BL-65 · Accident: loss of control in flight on approach
From Joint Force HQ Heliport (NC47) to Joint Force HQ Heliport (NC47)
Event
- NTSB case
- ERA11FA426
- 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
Taylorcraft BL-65
- Aircraft type
- Taylorcraft BL-65
- 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
- N24369
- Operator
- Brehm Joshua C
- Onboard fatalities
- Unknown
- Route
- From Joint Force HQ Heliport (NC47), Winterville, NCTo Joint Force HQ Heliport (NC47), Winterville, 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
- Approach
- 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
- Not determined › Not determined
Approximate · Coordinates as recorded by the NTSB; no uncertainty radius is established.
NTSB narrative
After a local flight, the vintage airplane was approaching the pilot's home airport on a very hot day (36 degrees C [97 degrees F]), and the cockpit was most likely hot as well. As the airplane approached perpendicular to the runway, it maintained a nose-down, left bank attitude, consistent with no further control inputs from the pilot. The airplane impacted the left side of runway, approximately one-third down the runway, pivoted 180 degrees, and came to rest about 20 feet from the initial impact point. Examination of the airframe and engine did not reveal evidence of any preimpact mechanical malfunctions. Although the autopsy report listed the cause of death as multiple injuries related to the crash, it also noted significant coronary artery disease and a tiny scar of the papillary muscle. Both suggested the possibility of a cardiac arrhythmia or heart attack that may have resulted in incapacitation. Additionally, the pilot's medical history revealed a vasovagal (fainting) episode due to nausea and vomiting about 2 years prior to the accident. Neither a vasovagal episode nor cardiac arrhythmia would have left any evidence for discovery during autopsy. As such, pilot incapacitation is possible in this accident because of the lack of control inputs as the airplane approached the runway.
Probable cause
A loss of airplane control for undetermined reasons as the autopsy was unable to reveal any definitive conditions that would have led to the loss of control.
Verbatim NTSB analysis and probable cause from the NTSB dataset
Sources
NTSB record ERA11FA426
- Event ID
- 20110728X64506
- Case number
- ERA11FA426
- 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: 48487625c13aea625976a7e2387b3eeea64f055b7114583bf91f78af4c902d4e; retrieved 2026-09-13T21:40:03.064Z.