ERA12CA213 · Zenair Ltd CH 2000
Zenair Ltd CH 2000 · Accident: loss of control on ground during takeoff
From Washington Manassas Harry P. Davis Field (HEF) to Warrenton Fauquier Airport (HWY)
Event
- NTSB case
- ERA12CA213
- 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
Zenair Ltd CH 2000
- Aircraft type
- Zenair CH-2000
- 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
- N200ZA
- Operator
- Unknown
- Onboard fatalities
- Unknown
- Route
- From Washington Manassas Harry P. Davis Field (HEF), Manassas, VATo Warrenton Fauquier Airport (HWY), Warrenton, VA
- 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
- Takeoff · rejected takeoff
- 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 on ground
- 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 › Action/decision
- Personnel issues › Task performance
Approximate · Coordinates as recorded by the NTSB; no uncertainty radius is established.
NTSB narrative
The flight instructor and student pilot, who was the owner of the airplane, were practicing simulated engine out/aborted takeoff procedures. The student pilot completed one aborted takeoff without incident; however, during a second attempt, he overrotated and the airplane climbed to an altitude of about 20 feet. The student pilot applied full engine power and landed on the runway; however, he did not reduce the engine power to idle when instructed. The instructor attempted to take control of the airplane, but the student pilot reported that he did not relinquish the flight controls to the instructor in a timely manner. With full power, the airplane tended to turn left, and the instructor applied right rudder and brakes, but was unable to overcome the full power setting, which the student still had not reduced as instructed. The airplane departed the left side of the runway and struck a runway sign, which resulted in substantial damage to the right wing. The pilots reported no preimpact mechanical malfunctions with the airplane that would have precluded normal operation.
Probable cause
The student pilot's failure to follow instruction and to relinquish control of the airplane to the flight instructor in a timely manner, which resulted in a runway excursion.
Verbatim NTSB analysis and probable cause from the NTSB dataset
Sources
NTSB record ERA12CA213
- Event ID
- 20120306X71346
- Case number
- ERA12CA213
- 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: 66ef579ef9e7c37b9e01a2c2b9cdc0b0518977ffb7f381b646013d0f755ebe4f; retrieved 2026-09-15T17:23:40.103Z.