ERA15FA348 · Aerofab INC. Lake LA-4-250
Aerofab INC. Lake LA-4-250 · Accident: abrupt maneuver during initial climb
From Somerset Airport (SMQ) to Somerset Airport (SMQ)
Event
- NTSB case
- ERA15FA348
- 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
Aerofab INC. Lake LA-4-250
- Aircraft type
- Aerofab LAKE LA-4-250
- 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
- N1401P
- Operator
- Unknown
- Onboard fatalities
- Unknown
- Route
- From Somerset Airport (SMQ), Somerset, NJTo Somerset Airport (SMQ), Somerset, NJ
- 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
- 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
- Abrupt maneuver
- 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
- Destroyed
Cause areas
- Aircraft › Aircraft oper/perf/capability
- Aircraft › Fluids/miscellaneous hardware
- Environmental issues › Conditions/weather/phenomena
- Personnel issues › Action/decision
- Personnel issues › Task performance
Approximate · Coordinates as recorded by the NTSB; no uncertainty radius is established.
NTSB narrative
The pilot departed in dark night conditions without performing a preflight inspection and with an unknown quantity of fuel on board. Surveillance video captured the takeoff, and, about 30 seconds later, a bright light travelled the opposite direction, and descended approximately parallel to the runway into the wooded area of the accident site. There was no fuel, no odor of fuel, and no evidence of fuel spillage at the scene. Examination of the wreckage revealed no mechanical anomalies that would have prevented normal operation, and propeller signatures and angularly-cut wood at the accident site suggested the engine was producing power when it entered the trees. The engine was later placed in a test cell, where it started immediately, accelerated smoothly, and ran continuously without interruption at all power settings.
The pilot's most recent logbook entry was for a round trip, 7.45-hour flight 3 weeks before the accident flight. Fuel receipts, performance data, and a partial radar track suggested a 3-hour flight away from his home base where he purchased 45 gallons of fuel to replace the fuel consumed. The return flight was about 4.4 hours in duration, but the pilot's route of flight and the number of takeoffs and landings performed en route could not be determined. Further, the fuel totals found programmed in the digital fuel flow indicator did not correlate to the actual usage of the airplane but rather to a partial fuel-load setting at an interim point of the flight, which could not be explained.
The video evidence indicates that the pilot did not complete a preflight inspection before the accident flight. Thus, it is likely that he discovered the airplane's low fuel state at takeoff and performed a turn back to the airport immediately. It is likely that the airplane lost power on takeoff or in the turn, then engine power was restored when the wings were leveled; however, this scenario could not be definitively determined. Further, the pilot was not instrument-rated, and a rapid, steep turn at low altitude in dark night conditions with little or no visual reference greatly reduced the likelihood of a safe return to the runway.
Probable cause
The pilot's attempted 180-degree return to the runway immediately after takeoff in dark night conditions, which resulted in collision with trees and terrain. Also causal was the pilot's inadequate preflight inspection, which resulted in a takeoff with little-to-no fuel on board the airplane.
Verbatim NTSB analysis and probable cause from the NTSB dataset
Sources
NTSB record ERA15FA348
- Event ID
- 20150910X60344
- Case number
- ERA15FA348
- 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: local date, investigation status. Values present in the bulk record are kept.
- The date is the local date; the NTSB stores the UTC date 2015-09-09.
- API snapshot SHA-256: 6d95c41d64c07d46e9a94e5344ccac9d53990de757d7b56357d5466f0c75fdbd; retrieved 2026-09-14T21:30:37.504Z.