ATL97LA048 · Bill Parson PARSON 2+2
Bill Parson PARSON 2+2 · Accident: airframe, component or system failure during takeoff
From X47 to an unrecorded destination
Event
- NTSB case
- ATL97LA048
- 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
- 2 · 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
Bill Parson PARSON 2+2
- Aircraft type
- Bill Parson PARSON 2
- Category
- Unknown
- 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
- N254WP
- Operator
- Unknown
- Onboard fatalities
- Unknown
- Route
- From X47To 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
- Takeoff
- 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
- Airframe, component or system failure
- 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
- Flt control syst, yoke/control stick › Failure, total
- Flt control syst, yoke/control stick › Overload
- Owner/pilot mechanic › Maintenance, adjustment, improper
Approximate · Estimated position: the centre of Bunnell, FL, the place the record names. Not the accident site.
NTSB narrative
The pilot/owner of the gyrocopter had completed maintenance repairs on the gyrocopter prior to the attempted departure. The pilot made a bending adjustment to the front flight control stick and had reinstalled it into the front position. Since this gyrocopter was also used for training, and the student pilot station was the front, the pilot had placed a frangible stick in that position. The purpose of the frangible or 'soft stick,' was to enable the instructor pilot, seated in the rear, to override the control forces of the student. According to an eyewitness, the pilot climbed into the front seat and the passenger climbed into the rear seat. The witness watched the gyrocopter as it climbed to about the height of the trees, entered a left turn and disappeared out of sight. Seconds later the witness saw a large flame coming from the vicinity where the gyrocopter was last seen. An examination of the gyrocopter at the accident site disclosed that the front seat control stick was fractured; the control stick fracture faces exhibited features typical of a fatigue cracking.
Probable cause
The owner/pilot mechanic's improper bending of the front flight control stick that resulted in an fatigue failure, and the subsequent loss of flight control.
Verbatim NTSB analysis and probable cause from the NTSB dataset
Sources
NTSB record ATL97LA048
- Event ID
- 20001208X07488
- Case number
- ATL97LA048
- 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: 2b8df6336268e393c9ae96c140ae91d423479f23b2658521dafff54b8ad82d6a; retrieved 2026-09-20T23:01:52.082Z.