ERA15LA130 · Robertson James F VELOCITY STD/RG E
Robertson James F VELOCITY STD/RG E · Accident: loss of control in flight during initial climb
From Sebastian Municipal Airport (X26) to Columbus County Municipal Airport (CPC)
Event
- NTSB case
- ERA15LA130
- 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
Robertson James F VELOCITY STD/RG E
- Aircraft type
- Robertson James VELOCITY STD RG
- 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
- N112TH
- Operator
- Andrew J. Liptak · private individual
- Onboard fatalities
- Unknown
- Route
- From Sebastian Municipal Airport (X26), Sebastian, FLTo Columbus County Municipal Airport (CPC), Whiteville, NC
- Aircraft age
- About 8 years (built 2007)
- 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
- Also codedOther events the NTSB coded in the sequence, such as a wire strike after a loss of power. Flight Findings uses them for its kinds of event. Glossary
- Tree(s)
- 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
The pilot had recently purchased the experimental, amateur-built airplane. He received 3.6 hours of familiarization training in another airplane by the same manufacturer during the 2 days before the accident while maintenance and inspections were performed on his airplane. Once the work was completed, the pilot departed on the accident flight. Witnesses reported that, immediately after rotation, they observed the right cabin door open. The airplane briefly maintained the runway heading and then began a "slow, lingering" left turn. One witness described the engine sound as increasing and decreasing between idle and full power. The airplane rolled left, then wings level, then left again before it descended to the ground. The airplane impacted trees near the airport perimeter; the right wing separated, and the fuselage was substantially damaged. Immediately after the accident, the pilot reported that he was taking off and that "the door blew open." The pilot subsequently reported that the airplane "pitched up violently" on takeoff and would not respond to nose-down pitch trim.
Examination of the airplane revealed flight control continuity from the cockpit area to the flight control surfaces. The latch mechanism on the right cabin door was found intact and fully functional. The pitch trim was found in a nearly full nose-up setting, and, when activated, the pitch trim motor ran through its full range at its normal rate. The pilot reported that there were no mechanical deficiencies with the airplane that would have precluded normal operation.
Probable cause
The pilot’s loss of airplane control after takeoff, which resulted in collision with terrain. Contributing to the accident was the pilot’s failure to properly secure the cabin door and trim the airplane for takeoff, which resulted in the cabin door opening and the nose pitching up suddenly at liftoff.
Verbatim NTSB analysis and probable cause from the NTSB dataset
Sources
NTSB record ERA15LA130
- Event ID
- 20150213X13657
- Case number
- ERA15LA130
- 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: 75a510767cdeca9cad4c31f5e09f9e8f888ba776fab638be5161c8da6739d888; retrieved 2026-09-16T02:05:09.755Z.