CHI99LA141 · Barrett Bensen B-8
Barrett Bensen B-8 · Accident: loss of control in flight on approach
From SHEPARD, MI to an unrecorded destination
Event
- NTSB case
- CHI99LA141
- 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
Barrett Bensen B-8
- Aircraft type
- Barrett Bensen B-8
- 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
- N4659T
- Operator
- Unknown
- Onboard fatalities
- Unknown
- Route
- From SHEPARD, MITo 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 go-around
- 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
- 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 › Rotor RPM, inadequate
Approximate · Estimated position: the centre of Mount Pleasant, MI, the place the record names. Not the accident site.
NTSB narrative
The pilot was attempting a go-around from a private airstrip. In a written statement, the pilot reported, 'I was coming in for a landing at my son-in-laws private airstrip. The strip has his house and a power line on the west end and woods on the east end. His strip is 1,200 feet long, plenty long for a gyro. I had made several landings there before. In the past my landings had been to the west. Due to the wind this one was from the east. As I approached I realized I was high and would use up a lot of runway, so I decided to go around. I then eased the throttle on to full and made a right bank . (there was a street, house, power line and a river to the left). At that moment the bird went into a downward roll to the left and nothing I did stopped it. I was on the ground before I knew it'. The pilot also stated that his airspeed was 40 mph and he did not recall making a right hand climb out before. The pilot reported that there was no mechanical malfunction. Examination of the wreckage revealed the gyroplane's rotor blades exhibited a cone shape.
Probable cause
the inadequate rotor rpm by the pilot.
Verbatim NTSB analysis and probable cause from the NTSB dataset
Sources
NTSB record CHI99LA141
- Event ID
- 20001212X18715
- Case number
- CHI99LA141
- 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: e28ee99b7999c173802b286b81b386625c971d61ea10dfb6c9e297c8e30c046d; retrieved 2026-09-21T20:33:17.976Z.