ERA21LA177 · Forisch Edward BUSHBY MUSTANG M II
Forisch Edward BUSHBY MUSTANG M II · Accident: loss of control in flight during takeoff
Event
- NTSB case
- ERA21LA177
- 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
- Event fatalities
- Unknown
- 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
Forisch Edward BUSHBY MUSTANG M II
- Aircraft type
- Forisch Edward BUSHBY MUSTANG
- 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
- N61EF
- Operator
- Unknown
- Onboard fatalities
- Unknown
- Route
- From not recordedTo not recorded
- Aircraft age
- About 32 years (built 1989)
- 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
No findings designated as a cause are recorded in the NTSB data yet.
Approximate · Coordinates as recorded by the NTSB; no uncertainty radius is established.
NTSB narrative
According to the pilot, he recently purchased the airplane and needed 3 hours of dual instruction before his insurance would be effective. He and a flight instructor were taking off and the airplane was about 6 feet above ground level when it began to roll to the right. The pilot attempted to apply left aileron control but was unable to move the control stick to the left. He told the flight instructor about the problem and they both tried to move the control stick to the left, but it would not move. The pilot rejected the takeoff and landed in the grass to the right side of the runway. Both main landing gear collapsed, and the airplane slid to a stop.
Examination of the left aileron bellcrank and push/pull rod revealed that the rod was contacting the access hole in the aft spar. The rivets that hold the threaded insert into the rod were contacting the edge of the spar and binding. This condition would have resulted in the uncommanded right turn experienced during the accident flight. After disconnecting the left aileron push/pull rod from the bellcrank, the control stick moved freely in the full range of motion.
Probable cause
Binding of the left aileron bellcrank push/pull rod, which resulted in an uncommanded right turn.
Verbatim NTSB analysis and probable cause from the NTSB dataset
Sources
NTSB record ERA21LA177
- Event ID
- 20210407102890
- Case number
- ERA21LA177
- 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: 4122993871d954acfaee6742eab05b15a143e8d6375093974c47afb83e15079a; retrieved 2026-09-16T13:56:06.538Z.