ERA16LA068 · McCorkle Robert B RANS S-12 AIRAILE
McCorkle Robert B RANS S-12 AIRAILE · Accident: loss of control in flight during initial climb
From Chilhowee Gliderport (92A) to Athens, TN (no airport)
Event
- NTSB case
- ERA16LA068
- 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
McCorkle Robert B RANS S-12 AIRAILE
- Aircraft type
- Mccorkle Robert RANS S-12 AIRAILE
- 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
- N6202N
- Operator
- Unknown
- Onboard fatalities
- Unknown
- Route
- From Chilhowee Gliderport (92A), Benton, TNTo Athens, TN (no airport)
- Aircraft age
- About 23 years (built 1992)
- 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
- Aircraft › Aircraft oper/perf/capability
- Personnel issues › Task performance
Approximate · Coordinates from the NTSB case API, not marked as estimated; no uncertainty radius is established.
NTSB narrative
The sport pilot of the experimental, amateur-built airplane was the last to takeoff in a group of three airplanes. After takeoff, the airplane entered a steep climb, banked sharply left, and then descended rapidly in a manner consistent with an aerodynamic stall and spin. Examination of the airplane did not reveal evidence of any preexisting mechanical anomalies that would have precluded normal operation. It is likely that, during the initial climb, the pilot failed to maintain control of the airplane, which resulted in the exceedance of the airplane's critical angle of attack and an aerodynamic stall/spin. Although the pilot had coronary artery disease, and he was taking clozapine, a drug that can cause seizures or cardiac arrest, it could not be determined whether the pilot was impaired or incapacitated at the time of the accident.
Probable cause
The pilot's failure to maintain airplane control during the initial climb, which resulted in the airplane exceeding its critical angle of attack and an aerodynamic stall/spin.
Verbatim NTSB analysis and probable cause from the NTSB dataset
Sources
NTSB record ERA16LA068
- Event ID
- 20151214X65358
- Case number
- ERA16LA068
- 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, coordinates. 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: 3971505d386e51724d8ecc1ee49959d0c329f02873c19f030f57e81cf4f52e44; retrieved 2026-09-14T21:35:30.515Z.