LAX00LA003 · Giles G-750
Giles G-750 · Accident: loss of control in flight while maneuvering
From Salinas Municipal Airport (SNS) to Salinas Municipal Airport (SNS)
Event
- NTSB case
- LAX00LA003
- 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
Giles G-750
- Aircraft type
- Giles G-750
- 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
- N17HE
- Operator
- Unknown
- Onboard fatalities
- Unknown
- Route
- From Salinas Municipal Airport (SNS), Salinas, CATo Salinas Municipal Airport (SNS)
- 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/mush
- 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 › Airspeed, not maintained
Approximate · Coordinates as recorded by the NTSB; no uncertainty radius is established.
NTSB narrative
The experimental airplane descended into the ground during an air show performance. The pilot was performing a 1-minute aerial sequence, which began and ended at the same spot on the runway. The propeller had a Beta range operating capability and was reversible to produce zero or negative thrust. Near the completion of the performance, the pilot established a descent angle about 50 to 60 degrees. After going into Beta reverse range, the pilot brought the propeller into flight idle as he descended through about 800 feet agl. The pilot said he moved the thrust lever forward to achieve 85 to 90 knots and the engine did not spool up; he believed it might have flamed out. He maintained a nose down attitude with airspeed on the verge of a stall and was able to briefly maintain a minimum sink rate, which increased just prior to impact. Examination of the engine revealed signatures consistent with operation in the mid to high power range at impact. There were no indications of any anomalies or discrepancies that would have precluded normal engine operation. Examination of the propeller revealed internal witness marks consistent with the blades being in the normal operating range at the time of impact.
Probable cause
the pilot's failure to maintain an adequate airspeed while maneuvering, which led to a stall/mush condition.
Verbatim NTSB analysis and probable cause from the NTSB dataset
Sources
NTSB record LAX00LA003
- Event ID
- 20001212X19979
- Case number
- LAX00LA003
- 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: d5a8a619dc52a73436f50109ebf1f57bdfaf910b305cd74020871b48984604dd; retrieved 2026-09-21T10:49:21.827Z.