LAX00LA140 · Stuart RAF 2000 GTX SE RAF 2000 G
Stuart RAF 2000 GTX SE RAF 2000 G · Accident: loss of control in flight on approach
From U08 to an unrecorded destination
Event
- NTSB case
- LAX00LA140
- 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
Stuart RAF 2000 GTX SE RAF 2000 G
- Aircraft type
- Stuart 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
- N60739
- Operator
- Unknown
- Onboard fatalities
- Unknown
- Route
- From U08To 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 pattern base
- 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 obtained/maintained
Approximate · Coordinates as recorded by the NTSB; no uncertainty radius is established.
NTSB narrative
The gyrocopter was seen porpoising over the runway when it became inverted and impacted the runway from 100 feet agl. The gyrocopter was destroyed in the ensuing post-impact fire. The pilot had indicated to a hangar mate and his spouse that this was the maiden flight. The pilot had purchased the gyrocopter a year earlier and conducted only taxi runs and engine ground runs during that time. A witness saw him take off and immediately saw the gyrocopter porpoising. The gyrocopter left the airport environment for a few minutes and then made a turn back towards the runway. The porpoising was observed to have stopped, and then started up again with an increase in intensity. A witness heard the engine power back and then saw the gyrocopter become inverted and impact the runway. Another witness stated that he saw the gyrocopter takeoff and noted that the main rotor blades appeared to be turning slowly. A review of the pilot's airman's certificate revealed that he did not hold a rotorcraft rating.
Probable cause
Failure of the pilot to obtain/maintain aircraft control. A factor in the accident was the pilot's inexperience in rotorcraft.
Verbatim NTSB analysis and probable cause from the NTSB dataset
Sources
NTSB record LAX00LA140
- Event ID
- 20001212X20680
- Case number
- LAX00LA140
- 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: 0de1e4a8136ed3cd713acd5e884ff851e5fac8580549768a0a5e0909283c9323; retrieved 2026-09-20T21:23:04.090Z.