GAA18CA083 · Michael Adamczyk ZENITH CH750
Michael Adamczyk ZENITH CH750 · Accident: loss of control in flight during takeoff
From Venango Regional Airport (FKL) to Venango Regional Airport (FKL)
Event
- NTSB case
- GAA18CA083
- 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
Michael Adamczyk ZENITH CH750
- Aircraft type
- Michael Adamczyk ZENITH CH750
- 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
- N750AD
- Operator
- Unknown
- Onboard fatalities
- Unknown
- Route
- From Venango Regional Airport (FKL), Franklin, PATo Venango Regional Airport (FKL), Franklin, PA
- Aircraft age
- Built the same year (2017)
- 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 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 as recorded by the NTSB; no uncertainty radius is established.
NTSB narrative
According to the pilot in the experimental amateur-built airplane, he was conducting a flight test. During the takeoff roll, he applied "too much aft stick," and the airplane entered an unintentional steep climb at a low airspeed. The airplane rolled left about 30°, he corrected to the right, and the airplane's nose dropped. The pilot further reported that he may have reduced the throttle and overcorrected to the right. The airplane stalled and impacted the ground.
The airplane sustained substantial damage to the right wing.
The pilot reported that this was his second flight in the accident airplane.
The pilot reported that there were no preaccident mechanical malfunctions or failures with the airplane that would have precluded normal operation.
Probable cause
The pilot’s excessive application of aft stick during takeoff, which resulted in an aerodynamic stall. Contributing to this accident was the pilot’s inexperience in the airplane.
Verbatim NTSB analysis and probable cause from the NTSB dataset
Sources
NTSB record GAA18CA083
- Event ID
- 20171209X52134
- Case number
- GAA18CA083
- 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: 50ab0e786dbf87eba9437cc2f4c05b6d5a56640dff241e66258cdb2a7e3b2b82; retrieved 2026-09-16T06:06:54.211Z.