SEA97LA096 · Hendrix TALON XP
Hendrix TALON XP · Accident: airframe, component or system failure on approach
From Sisters Eagle Air Airport (6K5) to an unrecorded destination
Event
- NTSB case
- SEA97LA096
- 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
- 0 · 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
Hendrix TALON XP
- Aircraft type
- Hendrix TALON XP
- 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
- N6291X
- Operator
- Unknown
- Onboard fatalities
- Unknown
- Route
- From Sisters Eagle Air Airport (6K5), Sisters, ORTo 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
- Approach · VFR pattern downwind
- 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
- Substantial
Cause areas
- Flt control syst, aileron control cable/rod › Failure
- Flt control syst, elevator control cable/rod › Failure
- Flt control syst, yoke/control stick › Disconnected
- Owner/builder › Maintenance, installation, inadequate
Approximate · Coordinates as recorded by the NTSB; no uncertainty radius is established.
NTSB narrative
The owner/builder (pilot) of the kitplane had accrued approximately 70 hours of operating time on the aircraft. During a flight, he began to lose aileron control. Shortly after entering downwind for landing, all aileron and elevator control were lost, and the pilot actuated the aircraft's ballistic parachute. Postcrash examination revealed that the pilot had installed only the forward flight control stick and torque tube, and had not installed either the rear flight control stick nor the interlink tube. This absence resulted in a structurally weakened control system and subsequent disconnect of the forward flight control stick from the torque tube in torsional overload. There was no caution note within the kitplane assembly instructions advising the builder that failure to install either the aft control stick and/or interlink tube would result in a compromise of the structural integrity of the fore and aft stick, torque tube and interlink tube assembly.
Probable cause
incomplete installation (omission of the aft control stick and interlink tube) of the flight control system, resulting in failure of the combined (torque) elevator and aileron rod and a disconnection of the forward flight control stick from the ailerons and elevators.
Verbatim NTSB analysis and probable cause from the NTSB dataset
Sources
NTSB record SEA97LA096
- Event ID
- 20001208X08014
- Case number
- SEA97LA096
- 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: be4454ba196dbb2bba6111c419641fa401e4fd2ad5ced2ae74b50c42e1f56ea3; retrieved 2026-09-21T21:27:39.373Z.