FTW90DRA03 · Air Command 447
Air Command 447 · Accident: loss of control in flight while maneuvering
From T72 to T72
Event
- NTSB case
- FTW90DRA03
- 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 447
- Aircraft type
- Air Command 447
- 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
- Guerra, Oscar J., JR · private individual
- Onboard fatalities
- Unknown
- Route
- From T72To T72
- 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 103: Ultralight
- 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
- Reason for occurrence undetermined
Approximate · Coordinates as recorded by the NTSB; no uncertainty radius is established.
NTSB narrative
THE PILOT LOST CONTROL OF THE AIRCRAFT SHORTLY AFTER TAKING OFF. IT WAS THE PILOT'S FIRST FLIGHT IN THE AIRCRAFT AFTER HE HAD REBUILT IT, HOWEVER, IT HAD BEEN TEST FLOWN BY ANOTHER INDIVIDUAL. THE PILOT HAD ACCUMULATED A TOTAL OF 6.5 HOURS IN GYROPLANES AND RECEIVED AN ENDORSEMENT TO HIS PRIVATE LICENSE. EXAMINATION OF THE WRECKAGE DID NOT REVEAL ANY REASON FOR THE LOSS OF CONTROL. PILOT WITNESSES, WHO WERE FAMILIAR WITH GYROPLANE OPERATIONS, STATED THAT THE PILOT LOST CONTROL DUE TO 'IMPROPER PILOT TECHNIQUE'.
Probable cause
THE PILOT'S LOSS OF CONTROL FOR UNDETERMINED REASONS. A FACTOR WAS THE PILOT'S LACK OF TOTAL EXPERIENCE IN THE ACCIDENT MAKE AND MODEL.
Verbatim NTSB analysis and probable cause from the NTSB dataset
Sources
NTSB record FTW90DRA03
- Event ID
- 20001212X22557
- Case number
- FTW90DRA03
- 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: ae714dedfc44742c96ae23c12859f2db9854acabcd4ccc2a6fbf83ac49fe1c20; retrieved 2026-09-21T02:57:22.814Z.