ERA13LA024 · Cashmer Philip M SONEX
Cashmer Philip M SONEX · Accident: loss of control in flight during initial climb
From Crossville Memorial Airport Whitson Field (CSV) to Winter Haven Regional Airport - Gilbert Field (GIF)
Event
- NTSB case
- ERA13LA024
- 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
Cashmer Philip M SONEX
- Aircraft type
- Cashmer Philip SONEX
- 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
- N198PC
- Operator
- Unknown
- Onboard fatalities
- Unknown
- Route
- From Crossville Memorial Airport Whitson Field (CSV), Crossville, TNTo Winter Haven Regional Airport - Gilbert Field (GIF), Winter Haven, FL
- 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 as recorded by the NTSB; no uncertainty radius is established.
NTSB narrative
Three days before the accident, a witness heard the airplane’s engine stop while the airplane was taxiing for departure and then restart before the airplane departed uneventfully. On the morning of the accident flight, another witness heard the airplane attempting to depart from the accident airport. During the departure, the engine power reduced suddenly while the airplane was at an altitude of about 15 feet. The airplane then continued to fly at that altitude until reaching the midpoint of the runway, before the engine power again increased, and the airplane began an abrupt climb. Shortly thereafter, another witness reported seeing the airplane in a spin just before it impacted the ground beyond the departure end of the runway.
Postaccident examination of the airplane showed damage signatures consistent with the airplane being in a left-turning aerodynamic stall/spin at impact. Additionally, a witness report, the condition of the cockpit canopy, and the postaccident position of the pilot’s restraints suggested that the pilot was likely not wearing the restraints at impact. Examination of the engine revealed no evidence of any obvious mechanical deficiencies. A definitive determination of the engine’s operational state at impact could not be established based on available evidence; however, the manufacturer of the airplane kit advised pilots to discontinue a takeoff if there were any signs of abnormal engine operation and to investigate the cause before attempting another takeoff.
Probable cause
The pilot’s failure to maintain control of the airplane, which resulted in a low-altitude aerodynamic stall/spin. Contributing to the accident was a loss of engine power for reasons that could not be determined during postaccident examination and the pilot’s decision to depart with a known deficiency. Contributing to the pilot’s injuries was his failure to use the installed restraint system.
Verbatim NTSB analysis and probable cause from the NTSB dataset
Sources
NTSB record ERA13LA024
- Event ID
- 20121016X51944
- Case number
- ERA13LA024
- 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: b0c9df3af129e2fce76de004d139b95eef19002c40735788c743d1d13d68472a; retrieved 2026-09-15T20:10:58.609Z.