MIA97LA091 · Hackett WINDEX 1200C WINDEX 12
Hackett WINDEX 1200C WINDEX 12 · Accident: loss of control in flight while maneuvering
From FDO6 to Lake Bird Heliport (FD06)
Event
- NTSB case
- MIA97LA091
- 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
Hackett WINDEX 1200C WINDEX 12
- Aircraft type
- Hackett WINDEX 1200
- 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
- N1201G
- Operator
- Lars R. Bergstrom · private individual
- Onboard fatalities
- Unknown
- Route
- From FDO6To Lake Bird Heliport (FD06)
- 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/spin
- 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 › Airspeed, inadequate
- Pilot in command › Stall/spin, inadvertent
Approximate · Coordinates as recorded by the NTSB; no uncertainty radius is established.
NTSB narrative
The home built, powered glider was being flown on a flight to conduct a stall test at 3,000 feet. A witness observed the powered sailplane flying westbound at low altitude. According to the witness, the powered sailplane entered an abrupt turn to the east, then it started rotating to the left in a descent until it disappeared from view below a tree line. Examination of the crash site revealed evidence that the powered sailplane collided with the ground in a near vertical descent, 10-degree nose-up attitude, with no evidence of forward motion, rotating around its vertical axis to the left. Examination of the airframe, flight control assembly, engine assembly, and accessories revealed no evidence of a precrash mechanical failure or malfunction. The powered sailplane had accumulated about 4 hours of flight time, since it was built.
Probable cause
failure of the pilot to maintain adequate airspeed, while maneuvering, which resulted in an inadvertent stall/spin and subsequent collision with terrain.
Verbatim NTSB analysis and probable cause from the NTSB dataset
Sources
NTSB record MIA97LA091
- Event ID
- 20001208X07593
- Case number
- MIA97LA091
- 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: 70e4b9b61775f6276878720230685e5be3a9906600461dd2e1485ba233c37d77; retrieved 2026-09-20T23:02:08.948Z.