ERA12CA588 · Henrie Raymond ZENITH CH 701 STOL
Henrie Raymond ZENITH CH 701 STOL · Accident during initial climb
From John Farese Airpark (MS14) to Island Bend Farms Airport (4TN9)
Event
- NTSB case
- ERA12CA588
- 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
Henrie Raymond ZENITH CH 701 STOL
- Aircraft type
- Henrie Raymond ZENITH CH 701 STOL
- 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
- N234RH
- Operator
- Henrie Raymond
- Onboard fatalities
- Unknown
- Route
- From John Farese Airpark (MS14), Ashland, MSTo Island Bend Farms Airport (4TN9), Beech Bluff, 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
- 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
- Miscellaneous/other
- 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
- Environmental issues › Conditions/weather/phenomena
- Personnel issues › Task performance
Approximate · Coordinates as recorded by the NTSB; no uncertainty radius is established.
NTSB narrative
According to the pilot’s statement, just before takeoff, he noted that the windsock was “still” and initiated his takeoff roll. About 15 to 20 feet above ground level (agl), the flight encountered a left crosswind causing the airplane to go to the right. The pilot corrected by immediately applying left aileron and left rudder control inputs, then removed the aileron and rudder control inputs. The flight continued and about 30 feet agl, the flight encountered another wind gust that pushed the airplane to the right “faster” than the pilot could apply corrections. The right wingtip impacted a treetop causing the airplane to reverse its direction, descend rapidly, and impact the ground. The airplane sustained substantial damage to the wings and fuselage. The pilot reported no preimpact mechanical failures or malfunctions that would have precluded normal operation. Weather data recorded around the time of the accident at the nearest observation facility indicated wind from 30 degrees at 9 knots. A representative of the airplane designer reported that a 5- to 10-knot crosswind is well within the airplane’s maximum demonstrated crosswind limitation.
Probable cause
The pilot’s inadequate compensation for crosswind conditions during initial climb, which resulted in an impact with trees and terrain.
Verbatim NTSB analysis and probable cause from the NTSB dataset
Sources
NTSB record ERA12CA588
- Event ID
- 20121003X52835
- Case number
- ERA12CA588
- 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: 092bf411999443d7c210e2d4b4db2c753905ddaed1710422065edde8cc76519f; retrieved 2026-09-15T20:05:17.265Z.