ERA15CA320 · Sanderson Herbert H SHA GLASAIR
Sanderson Herbert H SHA GLASAIR · Accident: loss of control on ground during takeoff
From Bladenboro Airport (3W6) to Waycross Ware County Airport (AYS)
Event
- NTSB case
- ERA15CA320
- 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
Sanderson Herbert H SHA GLASAIR
- Aircraft type
- Sanderson Herbert SHA GLASAIR
- 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
- N629HS
- Operator
- Derek Tippins
- Onboard fatalities
- Unknown
- Route
- From Bladenboro Airport (3W6), Bladenboro, NCTo Waycross Ware County Airport (AYS), Waycross, GA
- Aircraft age
- About 31 years (built 1984)
- 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
- 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 reported that the during the takeoff roll on a 2,850-foot-long, 135-foot-wide turf runway, the experimental, amateur-built, tailwheel airplane began to veer left as full engine power was attained. The pilot was unable to correct with right rudder and right brake input. She subsequently attempted to takeoff before the airplane veered too far, but it then began to porpoise. As the pilot started to reject the takeoff, the airplane traveled off the left side of the runway, struck a ditch and came to rest upright. The pilot reported that she had in excess of 1,800 hours of tailwheel experience; however, only 2.1 hours were in the same make and model as the accident airplane. She added that there were no preimpact mechanical malfunctions with the airplane and the wind was light and variable at the time of the accident. Examination of the airplane by a Federal Aviation Administration revealed damage to both wings and the fuselage.
Probable cause
The pilot's failure to maintain directional control during takeoff, which resulted in a runway excursion and collision with a ditch.
Verbatim NTSB analysis and probable cause from the NTSB dataset
Sources
NTSB record ERA15CA320
- Event ID
- 20150818X10401
- Case number
- ERA15CA320
- 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: 5c38484905bc00a72067f907e049b781c29165d64fdd0ebbb7cc6b3b9459d94e; retrieved 2026-09-16T02:41:09.725Z.