SEA99LA021 · Elliott RAF 2000
Elliott RAF 2000 · Accident: loss of control on ground/water during landing
From Walla Walla Regional Airport (ALW) to an unrecorded destination
Event
- NTSB case
- SEA99LA021
- 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
Elliott RAF 2000
- Aircraft type
- Elliott RAF-2000
- 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
- N797X
- Operator
- Unknown
- Onboard fatalities
- Unknown
- Route
- From Walla Walla Regional Airport (ALW)To 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
- Landing · landing roll
- 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 on ground/water
- 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
- Pilot in command › Directional control, not maintained
Approximate · Coordinates as recorded by the NTSB; no uncertainty radius is established.
NTSB narrative
The pilot reported that he was practicing taxi tests after just installing repaired rotor blades and propeller. On his fourth high-speed run, the gyroplane lifted off to approximately 20 feet in altitude. The pilot stated that he closed the throttle and the gyroplane touched down on its tailwheel, then its main gear; while still moving forward with the front wheel elevated, a slight wind gust caused the gyroplane to veer to the right. The pilot stated that he instinctively pushed left rudder, noting that at such slow speed, the rudder is ineffective, however, it does turn the steerable nosewheel to the left. When back pressure was released on the stick, the nosewheel touched down in a left-turn direction, causing the aircraft to roll over due to the sudden turning action.
Probable cause
The pilot's failure to maintain directional control after landing.
Verbatim NTSB analysis and probable cause from the NTSB dataset
Sources
NTSB record SEA99LA021
- Event ID
- 20001211X11633
- Case number
- SEA99LA021
- 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: 48d5b5e873940179995a3643d80eb872159f68cbe54d6d56f1ae5f1fd2a56b34; retrieved 2026-09-22T16:08:53.599Z.