LAX89DVM04 · Progress Aero R&D DISCOVERY
Progress Aero R&D DISCOVERY · Accident: loss of control in flight en route
From Monterey Regional Airport (MRY) to an unrecorded destination
Event
- NTSB case
- LAX89DVM04
- 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
Progress Aero R&D DISCOVERY
- Aircraft type
- Progress Aero DISCOVERY
- 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
- N81D
- Operator
- Unknown
- Onboard fatalities
- Unknown
- Route
- From Monterey Regional Airport (MRY), Monterey, CATo 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
- En route · cruise
- 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
- 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
- Stall/spin
- 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
- Stall/spin › Inadvertent
Approximate · Coordinates as recorded by the NTSB; no uncertainty radius is established.
NTSB narrative
THE EXPERIMENTAL COMPOSITE STRUCTURED ACFT WAS ON A TEST FLT. DRG A SLOW AIRSPEED TEST, IT ENTERED A FLAT SPIN FROM WHICH THE PLT WAS UNABLE TO RECOVER BY USING NORMAL CONTROLS. THE ACFT WAS EQUIPPED WITH A BALLISTIC PARACHUTE. THE PLT DEPLOYED THE CHUTE & SHUT DOWN THE ENG. SUBSEQUENTLY, THE ACFT TOUCHED DOWN WITH A PARACHUTE DESCENT RATE OF ABOUT 1800 FT/MIN. DRG TOUCHDOWN, THE PLT SUFFERED NECK & BACK INJURIES. HE RPRTD THAT DRG THE FLT, ALL FLT CONTROL SURFACES RESPONDED NORMALLY TO HIS CONTROL INPUTS. THE AERODYNAMIC CHARACTERISTICS WHICH PRODUCED THE SPIN WERE NOT IDENTIFIED.
Probable cause
THE EXPERIMENTAL AIRCRAFT'S INADVERTENT ENTRY INTO A NON-RECOVERABLE FLAT SPIN DURING A SLOW AIRSPEED TEST; THE AERODYNAMIC CHARACTERISTICS THAT PRODUCED THE SPIN WERE NOT DETERMINED.
Verbatim NTSB analysis and probable cause from the NTSB dataset
Sources
NTSB record LAX89DVM04
- Event ID
- 20001213X28855
- Case number
- LAX89DVM04
- 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: 0a094e76cb549d3fdeb1e6920028e90a23be75af7d3832594a48d05334332c71; retrieved 2026-09-21T15:53:32.737Z.