NYC99LA116 · Nations ACRO SPORT II ACRO SPORT
Nations ACRO SPORT II ACRO SPORT · Accident: loss of control in flight while maneuvering
From W59 · PENCE SPRINGS, WV to an unrecorded destination
Event
- NTSB case
- NYC99LA116
- 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
Nations ACRO SPORT II ACRO SPORT
- Aircraft type
- Nations ACRO SPORT
- 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
- N113JN
- Operator
- Unknown
- Onboard fatalities
- Unknown
- Route
- From W59 · PENCE SPRINGS, WVTo 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
- 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 › Aircraft control, not maintained
- Pilot in command › In-flight planning/decision, improper
Approximate · Coordinates as recorded by the NTSB; no uncertainty radius is established.
NTSB narrative
The student pilot was conducting a local flight with a passenger. The student pilot elected to engage in aerobatics. While at 1,000 feet agl, the student pilot attempted his first roll ever in the accident airplane. He entered a roll to the left, and then accidentally transitioned into a spin. He reduced the power, placed the pilot's stick to neutral, added full right rudder to counter the spin to the left. However, the airplane impacted terrain. Flight control continuity was established, and a witness reported hearing the engine operating until impact. The student pilot had a total of 75 hours of flight experience, and 25 hours in make and model. Included in the 75 hours, was 4 hours of dual instruction in a tailwheel equipped airplane, which included 'some' aerobatic training. In addition, the student had received spin, and spin recovery training. The student pilot had successfully completed 10 to 15 rolls in an Acro Sport I, and felt comfortable attempting a roll in the Acro Sport II.
Probable cause
The student pilot's improper decision to perform aerobatics, and his failure to maintain aircraft control, which resulted in an inadvertent spin. A factor in the accident was the pilot's lack of aerobatic experience.
Verbatim NTSB analysis and probable cause from the NTSB dataset
Sources
NTSB record NYC99LA116
- Event ID
- 20001212X18869
- Case number
- NYC99LA116
- 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: local date, investigation status. Values present in the bulk record are kept.
- The date is the local date; the NTSB stores the UTC date 1999-05-23.
- API snapshot SHA-256: 0e5c01b9dad3ffd46d186a42111bcd6b0a0a6fd9bd86964f4afc71d11c879c9d; retrieved 2026-09-20T22:06:53.775Z.