CHI88DEC04 · Perkins DRAGONFLY
Perkins DRAGONFLY · Accident: hard landing
Event
- NTSB case
- CHI88DEC04
- 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
Perkins DRAGONFLY
- Aircraft type
- Perkins DRAGONFLY
- 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
- N192AP
- Operator
- Unknown
- Onboard fatalities
- Unknown
- Route
- From not recordedTo 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
- Landing · flare/touchdown
- 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
- Hard landing
- 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 › Aircraft control, not maintained
- Pilot in command › Recovery from bounced landing, not performed
Approximate · Coordinates as recorded by the NTSB; no uncertainty radius is established.
NTSB narrative
THE PILOT INDICATED THAT HE HAD 3 HOURS TOTAL FLIGHT EXPERIENCE IN THE HOMEBUILT AIRCRAFT. HE STATED THAT HE ATTEMPTED A POWER-OFF LANDING AND THE AIRCRAFT BOUNCED. ON THE THIRD BOUNCE 'THE (RIGHT WING) SPAR POPPED.' THE PILOT STATED THAT 'THIS IS A LEARNING CURVE ACCIDENT' AND INDICATED THAT MORE TIME PRACTICING SLOW FLIGHT AND LANDINGS IN THE ACCIDENT AIRCRAFT WOULD HAVE HELPED PREVENT THE ACCIDENT. THE AIRCRAFT HAD SUSTAINED SUBSTANTIAL DAMAGE TO THE LEFT WING DUE TO A HARD LANDING DURING IT'S MAIDEN FLIGHT IN APRIL, 1986. THE FLIGHT DURING WHICH THIS ACCIDENT OCCURRED WAS THE AIRCRAFT'S FIRST FLIGHT SINCE THAT ACCIDENT.
Probable cause
THE PILOT FAILED TO MAINTAIN POSITIVE CONTROL OF HIS HOMEBUILT AIRCRAFT BY TAKING APPROPRIATE ACTIONS FOR RECOVERY FROM THE BOUNCED LANDING. THE AIRCRAFT CONTACTED THE GROUND ABRUPTLY ON THE THIRD BOUNCE AND THE UPPER WING SPAR FAILED. THE PILOT'S LACK OF TOTAL FLIGHT EXPERIENCE IN THE HOMEBUILT AIRCRAFT WAS A CONTRIBUTING FACTOR, AND THE AIRCRAFT APPEARS TO HAVE BEEN UNDERDESIGNED.
Verbatim NTSB analysis and probable cause from the NTSB dataset
Sources
NTSB record CHI88DEC04
- Event ID
- 20001213X26137
- Case number
- CHI88DEC04
- 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: 225d5cbbd7cd9796ad87b6a1d61f55479d41b9e13c4295d82989d6fcd712bf20; retrieved 2026-09-23T09:48:02.493Z.