At the time, the accident was blamed on two concurrent causes. First, the wake of a steamboat that was navigating on the lake close to the area where the Transaereo was accelerating was thought to have interfered with the takeoff. Second, test pilot Semprini was blamed for having kept pulling the yoke trying to gain altitude while he should have performed corrective maneuvers, for example lowering the nose to let the huge aircraft gain speed. Another theory suggests the aforementioned boat was a ferry loaded with passengers and Semprini (who was only performing some taxiing trials, for he didn't mean to take off before Caproni's arrival on the spot) was suddenly compelled to take off, in spite of the insufficient speed, to avoid a collision. According to more recent theories, the cause of the accident was probably the sandbags that had been placed in the aircraft to simulate the weight of passengers: not having been fastened to the seats, they may have slid to the back of the fuselage when, upon takeoff, the Transaereo suddenly pitched up. With the tail burdened by this additional load and a shift in the center of gravity, the aircraft became uncontrollable and the nose lifted more and more, until the Transaereo stalled and violently hit the water tail first.