LAX96LA003 · Fallbeck DYKE DELTA JD2 DYKE DELTA
Fallbeck DYKE DELTA JD2 DYKE DELTA · Accident: loss of control in flight while maneuvering
From Safford Regional Airport (SAD) to an unrecorded destination
Event
- NTSB case
- LAX96LA003
- 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
- API-reported fatalities
- 1 · all aircraft and ground
- Ground fatalities
- 0
- 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
Fallbeck DYKE DELTA JD2 DYKE DELTA
- Aircraft type
- Fallbeck DYKE DELTA JD2
- 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
- N515D
- Operator
- Unknown
- Onboard fatalities
- Unknown
- Route
- From Safford Regional Airport (SAD), AZTo not recorded
- Aircraft age
- Not recorded
- 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
- Maneuvering
- First occurrenceThe 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
- Also codedOther events the NTSB coded in the sequence, such as a wire strike after a loss of power. Flight Findings uses them for its kinds of event. Glossary
- Stall/mush
- 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
- Pilot in command › Planning/decision, improper
- Pilot in command › Stall/mush, not corrected
Approximate · Coordinates as recorded by the NTSB; no uncertainty radius is established.
NTSB narrative
The owner/builder (pilot) of a home built airplane was on a test flight to evaluate the slow speed flight characteristics of the airplane after installation of fixed tabs on the wing tip trailing edges. During the flight, the airplane crashed on the downhill side of a 50-foot knoll. The wreckage exhibited evidence of vertical impact loads and a low impact angle. The designer of the original prototype described a fully developed stall in this airplane as a mushing characteristic, resulting in a high sink rate and temporary loss of control. The designer also stated that the pilot's incorporation of a T-tail was a contravention of the original design specifications. The pilot had previously recorded stall speeds of 100 mph. The designer's intended stall speed was 75 mph for an unmodified airplane.
Probable cause
Improper planning/decision by the owner/builder (pilot), which resulted in his failure or inability to recover from a stall/mush condition.
Verbatim NTSB analysis and probable cause from the NTSB dataset
Sources
NTSB record LAX96LA003
- Event ID
- 20001207X04718
- Case number
- LAX96LA003
- Dataset
- historical-pre2008
- Source SHA-256
- 89e2df6d848e7ab3b42e7d7c7a03ff403303057a26ca04c95b3ea67201c3ce74
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: 04df512e98c16920dbf4cb7bddd48d299c83c829bb15939df2e3dcd2f96b50e2; retrieved 2026-09-20T23:33:24.625Z.