CHI90DET02 · Air Command 532
Air Command 532 · Accident: loss of control in flight while maneuvering
From 3HA · Lansing, IL to an unrecorded destination
Event
- NTSB case
- CHI90DET02
- 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
Air Command 532
- Aircraft type
- Air Command 532
- 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
- UNREG
- Operator
- Sheimo, Julian A. · private individual
- Onboard fatalities
- Unknown
- Route
- From 3HA · Lansing, ILTo 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
- 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 › Design stress limits of aircraft, exceeded
Approximate · Coordinates as recorded by the NTSB; no uncertainty radius is established.
NTSB narrative
THE NON-RATED PILOT WAS OBSERVED MAKING SEVERAL LOW ALTITUDE, LOW SPEED PASSES. THE GYROPLANE WAS THEN OBSERVED MAKING HIGH BANK TURNS AND ACCELERATING TO SPEEDS FASTER THAN THE WITNESSES HAD SEEN A GYROPLANE FLY BEFORE. AFTER ROLLING OUT OF A TURN AND LEVELING OFF, THE AIRCRAFT WAS OBSERVED TO BEGIN A SERIES OF UP-AND-DOWN ROLLER COASTER-LIKE MANEUVERS FOLLOWED BY A DIVING ROLL TO IMPACT. THE PILOT HAD A STUDENT PILOT CERTIFICATE AND HAD RECEIVED GYROPLANE INSTRUCTION FROM TWO INSTRUCTORS. NEITHER INSTRUCTOR HAD CERTIFIED THE PILOT FOR SOLO FLIGHT IN A GYROPLANE.
Probable cause
THE PILOT'S EXCEEDING THE DESIGN STRESS LIMITS OF THE AIRCRAFT. FACTORS IN THE ACCIDENT WERE THE PILOT'S OSTENTATIOUS DISPLAY AND HIS LACK OF TOTAL EXPERIENCE IN TYPE AIRCRAFT.
Verbatim NTSB analysis and probable cause from the NTSB dataset
Sources
NTSB record CHI90DET02
- Event ID
- 20001212X22382
- Case number
- CHI90DET02
- 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: 9662a6ef4aaea3ed94069c5ab7b983e0bfc895ddb9cec5fbe7b632cdbf0fc197; retrieved 2026-09-21T03:00:45.671Z.