WPR14CA178 · Elemdorf 1002
Elemdorf 1002 · Accident: runway excursion during takeoff
From Rexburg Madison County Airport (KRXE) to Edmonton / Cooking Lake Airport (CEZ3)
Event
- NTSB case
- WPR14CA178
- 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
Elemdorf 1002
- Aircraft type
- Elemdorf 1002
- 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
- C-FOWD
- Operator
- Don Thompson
- Onboard fatalities
- Unknown
- Route
- From Rexburg Madison County Airport (KRXE), Rexburg, IDTo Edmonton / Cooking Lake Airport (CEZ3), Cooking Lake
- Aircraft age
- About 12 years (built 2002)
- 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
- Runway excursion
- 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 from the NTSB case API, which marks them as estimated or does not say; no uncertainty radius is established.
NTSB narrative
The pilot stated that he was in the left seat and a pilot rated passenger, who was a certified flight instructor (CFI), was in the right seat. The flight instructor stated that his seat was positioned aft such that he could not reach the rudder pedals. The pilot positioned the airplane on runway 35 for takeoff and said that he rotated a little bit early (70 knots) during the takeoff roll but it was manageable. The flight instructor stated that the airplane swerved left and right before the pilot rotated. The flight instructor called out to bring the throttle back, and described the remaining portion of the flight as porpoising. Both pilots reported that there was confusion in the cockpit.
A witness said that he observed the airplane rotate early, enter a steep nose high attitude, and then begin to settle while the elevator was moving up and down erratically. After skidding for 497 feet the airplane went off the end of the runway and into brush causing substantial damage to some fuselage bulkheads and the right wing spar.
The pilot reported no preimpact mechanical malfunctions or failures with the airplane that would have precluded normal operation.
Probable cause
The pilot's loss of directional control and early rotation during takeoff. Contributing to the accident was the failure of the pilots to exercise adequate communication techniques.
Verbatim NTSB analysis and probable cause from the NTSB dataset
Sources
NTSB record WPR14CA178
- Event ID
- 20140430X90625
- Case number
- WPR14CA178
- 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, coordinates. 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: 360c25d90814550ed4ef47028b77cc95557c3aace617bcde7f3597ccebac3504; retrieved 2026-09-15T23:34:03.743Z.