ERA14LA305 · Christen Industries Inc A 1
Christen Industries Inc A 1 · Accident: loss of control in flight during takeoff
From Tampa Executive Airport (VDF) to Tampa Executive Airport (VDF)
Event
- NTSB case
- ERA14LA305
- 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
- 1 · 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
Christen Industries Inc A 1
- Aircraft type
- Christen A-1
- 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
- N436C
- Operator
- Martin Ki
- Onboard fatalities
- Unknown
- Route
- From Tampa Executive Airport (VDF), Tampa, FLTo Tampa Executive Airport (VDF), Tampa, FL
- Aircraft age
- About 26 years (built 1988)
- 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 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
Witnesses reported seeing the airplane take off from a grassy area adjacent to the runway. Witness statements and a video revealed that, immediately after takeoff, the airplane entered a steep left turn about 30 ft above ground level. The airplane then turned about 270 degrees, with continuous engine noise, before descending nose down into the ground. Examination of the wreckage did not reveal any preimpact mechanical malfunctions that would have precluded normal operation. The pilot did not have his five-point harness buckled during the flight. Although the pilot's widow reported that the pilot probably crashed the airplane on purpose because they had been separated about 1 year and she had moved out of their residence 4 days before the accident, it could not be determined if the accident occurred as a result of an intentional act by the pilot.
Probable cause
The pilot’s failure to maintain airplane control during initial climb after takeoff, which resulted in an uncontrolled descent into the ground.
Verbatim NTSB analysis and probable cause from the NTSB dataset
Sources
NTSB record ERA14LA305
- Event ID
- 20140622X00331
- Case number
- ERA14LA305
- 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: da0b3b170855d2365a9bb2ce36731597c59c703adc20d74e3b7b151da6f248cf; retrieved 2026-09-14T17:20:13.002Z.