WPR24LA175 · Dennis T Kirby/Michael B Kirby MURPHY REBEL
Dennis T Kirby/Michael B Kirby MURPHY REBEL · Accident: system/component malfunction/failure (non-power) during takeoff
Event
- NTSB case
- WPR24LA175
- 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
Dennis T Kirby/Michael B Kirby MURPHY REBEL
- Aircraft type
- Dennis T Kirby/michael B Kirby MURPHY REBEL
- 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
- N79ZT
- Operator
- Unknown
- Onboard fatalities
- Unknown
- Route
- From not recordedTo not recorded
- Aircraft age
- About 2 years (built 2022)
- 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
- System/component malfunction/failure (non-power)
- 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
- Aircraft › Aircraft systems
Approximate · Coordinates from the NTSB case API, which marks them as estimated or does not say; no uncertainty radius is established.
NTSB narrative
The pilot reported that he had a “controllability issue” during takeoff and lost directional control. According to an FAA inspector, the airplane then veered right, exited the runway, and impacted a berm. Subsequently, the airplane had a post-crash fire and was destroyed. The pilot informed the FAA inspector that he improperly reconnected the ailerons and flaps prior to the accident flight. The pilot further reported that during the takeoff roll, the flight controls “felt funny” and realized that he had mis-rigged the aileron and flap controls. The pilot did not submit the National Transportation Safety Board Pilot/Operator Aircraft Accident/Incident Report Form 6120.1 as requested.
Probable cause
The pilot’s improper installation of the aileron and flap control systems, which resulted in a loss of directional control during the takeoff roll and subsequent runway excursion.
Verbatim NTSB analysis and probable cause from the NTSB dataset
Sources
NTSB record WPR24LA175
- Event ID
- 20240604194393
- Case number
- WPR24LA175
- Dataset
- full-current
- Source SHA-256
- 5cf380f0061817c0331a6b2d8cc7e0ee3a79bea469a1001dc5c10e56f35f5ab3
Source notes (5)
- 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, cause areas. 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: 37473f56fe2cad08ca231f6d2a3fff2e7effe6fd262f6d5458f688fe8518f252; retrieved 2026-09-16T18:51:08.092Z.
- Corrected after a review of the NTSB narrative, which states these values explicitly: damage. Narrative states the airplane had a post-crash fire and was destroyed after the runway excursion.