Amateur-built COMP AIR 8 N882X accident near Mount Pleasant, South Carolina

Probable cause

The pilot's failure to retrim the airplane and maintain aircraft control during an aborted landing, which resulted in an inadvertent stall. Contributing to the accident was the pilot's lack of experience in the accident airplane make and model.

NTSB analysis

The pilot was conducting the first leg of a positioning flight in an experimental, amateur built, tail-wheel turboprop airplane. During landing, the airplane touched down to the right of the runway centerline and departed the right side of the runway. The pilot then added engine power to attempt an aborted landing. The airplane lifted off the runway, pitched up at a steep angle, stalled, and impacted the ground. Examination of the wreckage did not reveal any mechanical malfunctions; however, a postcrash fire consumed the majority of the wreckage. The airplane's pitch trim actuator was observed in the landing position, which was the full nose-up position and would have resulted in a steep nose-up attitude during climb-out, if not corrected by the pilot. The pilot had accumulated about 1,930 hours of total flight experience; however, he only had 5 total hours in the same make and model as the accident airplane.

Text from the NTSB. Open the NTSB docket for ERA10LA365 for the full record.