ERA15LA282 · North American NAVION
Air Group 88 North American NAVION · Accident: controlled flight into terrain/object (CFIT) during initial climb
From Eagle's Nest Airport (W13) to WMSV · Monticello, NY
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
- ERA15LA282
- 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
North American NAVION
- Aircraft type
- North American NAVION
- 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
- N91418
- Operator
- Air Group 88
- Onboard fatalities
- Unknown
- Route Narrative disagrees
- From Eagle's Nest Airport (W13), Waynesboro, VATo WMSV · Monticello, NY
- Aircraft age
- About 69 years (built 1946)
- 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
- Controlled flight into terrain/object (CFIT)
- 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 private pilot was attempting to depart on a personal cross-county flight from a 2,004-ft-long-runway. The pilot reported that, before the flight, he loaded the airplane with baggage and filled both wing tanks and the auxiliary fuel tank. He added that he rotated the airplane at 65 mph and that, during the rotation, the airplane failed to climb, and the airspeed did not increase. The pilot then leveled the airplane briefly to achieve 70 mph and increased the pitch, but the airplane still would not climb. A witness reported that the airplane pitched up and remained in ground effect with the wings rocking back and forth as it flew down the length of the runway. Another witness stated that, when the airplane rotated, it appeared to lose lift and could not climb out of ground effect. The airplane hit trees past the end of the runway and then came to rest in a pond.
A postaccident examination of the airframe and engine revealed no evidence of mechanical malfunctions or failures that would have precluded normal operation. Given the pilot's statements, it is likely he rotated the airplane early and attempted to gain airspeed while in ground effect and then pitched up the airplane as he neared the end of the runway. Postaccident calculations revealed that the airplane was near its maximum gross weight and aft center of gravity limit, which combined with the high-density altitude conditions, would have resulted in the airplane pitching up more than expected and its inability to climb and increased the required takeoff distance, leaving little margin for error.
Probable cause
The pilot's early rotation of the airplane and his failure to attain a positive climb rate during takeoff with the airplane near its aft center of gravity limit from a runway with little margin for error.
Verbatim NTSB analysis and probable cause from the NTSB dataset
Sources
NTSB record ERA15LA282
- Event ID
- 20150726X03836
- Case number
- ERA15LA282
- 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: eec7ec0381407035fd9c9fb496e6741eb5b26209a351f11c78d4d22048c4baeb; retrieved 2026-09-16T02:34:38.555Z.