SEA01LA009 · Hallett HALLETT-1
Hallett HALLETT-1 · Accident: in flight collision with object during takeoff
From Flying B Airport (8WA0) to an unrecorded destination
Event
- NTSB case
- SEA01LA009
- 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
Hallett HALLETT-1
- Aircraft type
- Hallett HALLETT-1
- 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
- N8331H
- Operator
- Unknown
- Onboard fatalities
- Unknown
- Route
- From Flying B Airport (8WA0)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
- Takeoff
- 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
- In flight collision with object
- 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
- Wire, transmission
- 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 › Aborted takeoff, not performed
- Pilot in command › Clearance, not maintained
Approximate · Coordinates as recorded by the NTSB; no uncertainty radius is established.
NTSB narrative
The pilot, who was aware that the engine on his gyroplane had not been producing the expected maximum full power, attempted a takeoff at an airstrip which had a marked power line just off the departure end of the runway. After liftoff, the aircraft climbed at a very shallow angle, and by the time it had proceeded more than 90 percent of the way down the runway, it had not climbed higher than the subject obstacle. Instead of aborting the takeoff, the pilot tried to increase the aircraft's angle of climb. As the gyroplane neared the end of the runway, it seemed to the pilot that its power output was decreasing, and he became convinced that he might not be able to clear the power line. He therefore attempted to fly under the marked line, but impacted an unmarked line strung lower on the poles.
Probable cause
The pilot's failure to abort the takeoff when it became questionable as to whether the aircraft would be able to clear an object just off the departure end of the runway, and the pilot's failure to maintain clearance from the object as he attempted to continue the departure. Factors include operating with a known engine deficiency, and a power line strung just off the departure end of the runway.
Verbatim NTSB analysis and probable cause from the NTSB dataset
Sources
NTSB record SEA01LA009
- Event ID
- 20001212X22256
- Case number
- SEA01LA009
- 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: 11a87f16c12027c37677e9566010b195c72a1c7ec2ca04957b5684686c3a0468; retrieved 2026-09-22T12:22:07.117Z.