FTW99FA256 · Spagnoletti AIR COMMAND 582 AIR COMMAN
Spagnoletti AIR COMMAND 582 AIR COMMAN · Accident: loss of control in flight during initial climb
From Conroe-North Houston Regional Airport (CXO) to an unrecorded destination
Event
- NTSB case
- FTW99FA256
- 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
Spagnoletti AIR COMMAND 582 AIR COMMAN
- Aircraft type
- Spagnoletti AIR COMMAND 582
- 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
- N813AC
- Operator
- Unknown
- Onboard fatalities
- Unknown
- Route
- From Conroe-North Houston Regional Airport (CXO)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
- Initial climb
- 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
- Destroyed
Cause areas
- Pilot in command › Aircraft control, not maintained
Approximate · Estimated position: the centre of Conroe, TX, the place the record names. Not the accident site.
NTSB narrative
During the takeoff/initial climb at 250 feet agl, the gyroplane was observed in a nose high attitude, banked right, when the main rotor blade at the 6 o'clock position appeared to stop moving and the main rotor blade at the 12 o'clock position appeared to fold back on itself. The gyroplane, under full power, nose dived onto a taxiway and continued into the adjacent grassy area before coming to rest. Prior to the accident flight, the builder/owner found no discrepancies with the gyroplane during his preflight and flight. He further stated that the 'gyroplane was 100 percent perfect for flight.' The builder/owner stated that the accident pilot 'unloaded the blades, the blades flapped, and with the engine at full power, the gyroplane entered a somersault.' Examination of the main rotor blades and hub revealed damage consistent with severe instability in the main rotor system. The pilot had accumulated 10 hours in gyroplanes and had not flown the accident gyroplane in a year.
Probable cause
The pilot's failure to maintain aircraft control during the takeoff/initial climb. A factor was the pilot's lack of recent experience in the type of aircraft.
Verbatim NTSB analysis and probable cause from the NTSB dataset
Sources
NTSB record FTW99FA256
- Event ID
- 20001212X19753
- Case number
- FTW99FA256
- 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: e142d1d43ae527d0d1ed48d30abbf5c31b6fafa254de82d2a46c8ccbdd794fc5; retrieved 2026-09-20T21:48:35.872Z.