Single Pilot reported a temporary flight control cable jam during initial climb which resulted in a course deviation and low altitude flight over hangers. Pilot reported fatigue as the primary cause of the errors.

Date: 2023-08 · Aircraft: Small Aircraft · Phase: takeoff

Anomalies: aircraft-equipment-problem-critical|deviation-altitude-excursion-from-assigned-altitude|deviation-track-heading-all-types|deviation-discrepancy-procedural-far|deviation-discrepancy-procedural-published-material-policy|inflight-event-encounter-loss-of-aircraft-control

Synopsis

Single Pilot reported a temporary flight control cable jam during initial climb which resulted in a course deviation and low altitude flight over hangers. Pilot reported fatigue as the primary cause of the errors.

Narrative

This occurred during a repositioning flight from ZZZ to ZZZ1. I had attended the ZZZ2 airshow with my aircraft as a static display and my friend flew my aircraft from ZZZ2 to ZZZ. I met him there in another aircraft that I had repositioned from the ZZZ2 to ZZZ. AT ZZZ2 I had placed my small overnight bag and backpack on the rear seat in my aircraft and secured it with the seat belt. At ZZZ I placed my helmet bag (with my flight helmet in it) on my backpack with the intention of securing it with the seat belt as well. I must have gotten distracted and I forgot to secure the helmet bag prior to departing. I taxied to and departed Runway XX at ZZZ. During my takeoff roll; about the time the tail came up; I felt or heard something and as soon as I broke ground I could feel a resistance when I tried to move the stick to the right. I realized that my helmet bag had fallen to the floor in the rear cockpit and was either blocking the controls or binding in the exposed aileron cable/pulley. After a couple trys I was able to free the bag and then held it on my lap for the remainder of the flight. During my attempts to free the bag I had drifted left of the runway by several hundred feet and was over the hangars at approximately 100 feet AGL when I corrected back to the right. Due to the other traffic in the left pattern for Runway XX I opted to just continue to depart to the West and then Northwest in the direction of my destination of ZZZ1. The rest of the flight went smoothly. After some reflection I realize that there were probably some contributing factors to my failure to secure the bag. I had not slept well the two previous nights (some noise at the hotel kept waking me up at XA:00; had spent two days in the sun at the airshow and had not eaten much the day this happened. I was also in a hurry to get back to ZZZ1 in the daylight as I prefer not to fly my Aircraft X at night.

Source: NASA Aviation Safety Reporting System (public domain). Reports are voluntary submissions and are not verified by NASA.