ERA16LA014 · Gross Michael E STOL CH 701
Gross Michael E STOL CH 701 · Accident: loss of control in flight during initial climb
From Weedon Field (EUF) to Eu-Wish Airport (MU68)
Event
- NTSB case
- ERA16LA014
- 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
Gross Michael E STOL CH 701
- Aircraft type
- Gross Michael STOL CH 701
- 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
- N4931M
- Operator
- Unknown
- Onboard fatalities
- Unknown
- Route
- From Weedon Field (EUF), Eufala, ALTo Eu-Wish Airport (MU68), Hermann, MO
- Aircraft age
- About 9 years (built 2006)
- 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
- 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
- Personnel issues › Action/decision
Approximate · Coordinates as recorded by the NTSB; no uncertainty radius is established.
NTSB narrative
The private pilot had purchased the airplane a day earlier and, while flying it back to his home airport, stopped at an en route airport to refuel. The pilot stated that, about midfield during the takeoff, the engine began to run roughly and vibrate, was not producing full power, and the flight controls "got mushy." Shortly after the takeoff, at an altitude of 50 ft, the airplane veered to the left, impacted the ground, and nosed over. The pilot noted that the airplane took longer to take off due to a crosswind; however, weather recorded at the airport 13 minutes after the accident included calm winds. Postaccident examination of the airframe and engine revealed no evidence of any preexisting mechanical anomalies that would have precluded normal operation, and the reason for the loss of engine power could not be determined.
Probable cause
A partial loss of engine power during takeoff for reasons that could not be determined, because postaccident examination revealed no evidence of any preimpact mechanical malfunctions or failures. Also causal was the pilot's decision to continue the takeoff following the loss of power.
Verbatim NTSB analysis and probable cause from the NTSB dataset
Sources
NTSB record ERA16LA014
- Event ID
- 20151015X54804
- Case number
- ERA16LA014
- 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: 567d000caa9a1e75fea8880fbd9e75d16ca3f6b83a971bb0102f1603abc4350f; retrieved 2026-09-16T02:53:25.093Z.