CEN13CA412 · Universal Stinson 108-1
Universal Stinson 108-1 · Accident: loss of control on ground during takeoff
From Flying Cloud Airport (KFCM) to Hector Municipal Airport (1D6)
Narrative check · The NTSB narrative appears to contradict this record's departure or destination. Values are shown as recorded, not corrected; compare with the narrative.
Event
- NTSB case
- CEN13CA412
- 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
- 0
- 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
Universal Stinson 108-1
- Aircraft type
- Universal Stinson 108
- 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
- N855F
- Operator
- Mark S Erickson · private individual
- Onboard fatalities
- Unknown
- Route Narrative disagrees
- From Flying Cloud Airport (KFCM), Eden Praire, MNTo Hector Municipal Airport (1D6), Hector, MN
- 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
- 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
- Personnel issues › Action/decision
Approximate · Coordinates as recorded by the NTSB; no uncertainty radius is established.
NTSB narrative
During the takeoff roll, at about 50 knots, the airplane began to drift to the left. The pilot stated that as the airplane drifted to the left, she inadvertently tapped on the right brake, and then released the brake while adding right ailerons inputs. Corrections were made to maneuver the airplane back to the runway centerline. The right wingtip was lowered and impacted the ground 2 or 3 times. She continued to apply inputs to the right rudder pedal. The airplane nosed-over and sustained substantial damage to both wing spars and the vertical stabilizer. The second pilot stated that he didn’t know why the airplane responded as it did and was unsure if there were any malfunctions with the airplane prior to the accident. He estimated the wind to be from the left at 5 knots. A postaccident examination of the airplane by a Federal Aviation Administration inspector revealed no evidence of preaccident mechanical malfunctions or failures with the airplane that would have precluded normal operation. As the pilot was making continuous rudder pedal inputs, it is likely that she inadvertently applied the brakes.
Probable cause
The pilot’s inadvertent application of the brakes and failure to main directional control of the airplane during the takeoff roll, which resulted in the airplane nosing over.
Verbatim NTSB analysis and probable cause from the NTSB dataset
Sources
NTSB record CEN13CA412
- Event ID
- 20130715X54936
- Case number
- CEN13CA412
- 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: 2ab08b68437c3717312d48ef877a29ad84f16075aa343e1277a916b6fa1fbfd6; retrieved 2026-09-15T22:12:44.311Z.