ERA18LA249 · Edward R. Sugg Sonex
Edward R. Sugg Sonex · Accident: loss of control in flight while maneuvering
From Florence Regional Airport (FLO) to Florence Regional Airport (FLO)
Narrative check · The NTSB narrative appears to contradict this record's location. Values are shown as recorded, not corrected; compare with the narrative.
Event
- NTSB case
- ERA18LA249
- 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
Edward R. Sugg Sonex
- Aircraft type
- Edward R Sugg SONEX
- 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
- N75SX
- Operator
- Unknown
- Onboard fatalities
- Unknown
- Route
- From Florence Regional Airport (FLO), Florence, SCTo Florence Regional Airport (FLO), Florence, SC
- Aircraft age
- About 11 years (built 2007)
- 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
- Maneuvering
- 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
- Not determined › Not determined
- Personnel issues › Task performance
Approximate · Coordinates as recorded by the NTSB; no uncertainty radius is established.
NTSB narrative
The 85-year-old commercial pilot was conducting a local pleasure flight in his experimental, amateur-built airplane. A witness near the accident site saw the airplane flying at low altitude before it entered a "straight up" climb followed by a descent and continued "straight down" toward the ground. It did not appear that the pilot attempted to pull out of the dive.
Examination of the airplane and engine revealed no mechanical discrepancies that would have precluded normal operation. Despite the pilot's age, his daughter stated that he had no known medical issues (cardiac, respiratory or physical) that would interfere with his flying, and no evidence of incapacitation or impairment were identified by the autopsy and toxicology testing. The reason for the airplane's impact with terrain could not be determined based on the available information.
Probable cause
Impact with terrain for reasons that could not be determined based on the available information.
Verbatim NTSB analysis and probable cause from the NTSB dataset
Sources
NTSB record ERA18LA249
- Event ID
- 20180912X42701
- Case number
- ERA18LA249
- 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: c5a2cc4ab0156b6c8b74f33d399b42f25810e32fb9b939efa3d1890377c0cc45; retrieved 2026-09-15T06:47:57.648Z.