NYC98LA172 · Ekstrom-Farrington TWINSTAR
Ekstrom-Farrington TWINSTAR · Accident: airframe, component or system failure on approach
From FIO to an unrecorded destination
Event
- NTSB case
- NYC98LA172
- 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
Ekstrom-Farrington TWINSTAR
- Aircraft type
- Ekstrom Farrington TWINSTAR
- Category
- Gyroplane
- 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
- N72DE
- Operator
- Unknown
- Onboard fatalities
- Unknown
- Route
- From FIOTo 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 final
- 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
- Kit manufacturer › Acft/equip, inadequate design
- Miscellaneous, bolt/nut/fastener/clamp/spring › Failure
Approximate · Coordinates as recorded by the NTSB; no uncertainty radius is established.
NTSB narrative
The gyroplane was on short final, about 15 feet above the ground, when it went into an uncommanded right turn and right roll. The heading changed 180 degrees, and the gyroplane impacted sod near the runway threshold. The gyroplane had a rotor brake mechanism which was activated by pushing the cyclic control full forward. A through-bolt which had attached the two lateral control arms to the yoke assembly, was discovered missing, and the right lateral control arm had separated from the yoke assembly. The kit manufacturer was considering implementing a clamp-type rotor brake system, much like a bicycle's, to prevent rotor brake forces from passing through the flight control system.
Probable cause
Failure of a through-bolt that attached the lateral control arms to the yoke assembly, due to unanticipated rotor brake forces through the flight control system.
Verbatim NTSB analysis and probable cause from the NTSB dataset
Sources
NTSB record NYC98LA172
- Event ID
- 20001211X10944
- Case number
- NYC98LA172
- 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: 239b9905c36ab35e7ad60be6029507fa6f38c50584f09ceaa2c94c80585c247d; retrieved 2026-09-22T17:01:08.569Z.