ERA16FA238 · Gerdts Mark E RV7A
Gerdts Mark E RV7A · Accident: loss of control in flight en route
From Boca Raton Airport (BCT) to Miami-Opa Locka Executive Airport (OPF)
Event
- NTSB case
- ERA16FA238
- 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
- 0
- 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
Gerdts Mark E RV7A
- Aircraft type
- Gerdts Mark RV7
- 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
- N1075F
- Operator
- Unknown
- Onboard fatalities
- Unknown
- Route
- From Boca Raton Airport (BCT), Boca Raton, FLTo Miami-Opa Locka Executive Airport (OPF), Miami, FL
- Aircraft age
- About 6 years (built 2010)
- 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
- En route · cruise
- 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
- Destroyed
Cause areas
- Aircraft › Aircraft oper/perf/capability
- Not determined › Not determined
- Personnel issues › Task performance
Approximate · Coordinates as recorded by the NTSB; no uncertainty radius is established.
NTSB narrative
The private pilot was conducting a personal cross-country flight in the airplane, which he had recently purchased. Radar data showed that about 15 minutes after takeoff, the airplane was in cruise flight when it suddenly entered a left descending turn that continued to terrain impact. Examination of the wreckage did not reveal any evidence of preimpact mechanical malfunctions, and weather was not a factor. The 78-year-old pilot had a medical history that included coronary artery disease, high blood pressure, and the placement of a pacemaker. The pilot's heart disease could have contributed to the accident; however, the autopsy provided limited information and a readout of the pilot's pacemaker showed no evidence of arrhythmia around the time of the accident. Toxicology testing detected ethanol that was from postmortem production rather than ingestion. The investigation could not determine if some other medical event resulted in incapacitation or why the pilot may have lost control of the airplane.
Probable cause
The pilot's loss of airplane control for reasons that could not be determined based on the available evidence.
Verbatim NTSB analysis and probable cause from the NTSB dataset
Sources
NTSB record ERA16FA238
- Event ID
- 20160704X85554
- Case number
- ERA16FA238
- 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: b1e6c2fd811cf2e69ca1d100d9f9a6fed118679cd9ba4686d277957632ffefc7; retrieved 2026-09-14T21:52:39.341Z.