LAX01LA087 · Sutton Tailwind W-8L
Sutton Tailwind W-8L · Accident: in flight collision with terrain/water while maneuvering
From 4SD · Reno, NV to an unrecorded destination
Event
- NTSB case
- LAX01LA087
- 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
- 2 · all aircraft and ground
- Ground fatalities
- Unknown
- 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
Sutton Tailwind W-8L
- Aircraft type
- Sutton Tailwind W-8
- 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
- N12079
- Operator
- Unknown
- Onboard fatalities
- Unknown
- Route
- From 4SD · Reno, NVTo 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
- In flight collision with terrain/water
- 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 › Aerobatics, attempted
- Pilot in command › Altitude, low
- Pilot in command › Altitude/clearance, not maintained
Approximate · Coordinates from the NTSB case API, which marks them as estimated or does not say; no uncertainty radius is established.
NTSB narrative
The airplane was engaged in aerobatic maneuvers at the time of the accident and impacted the ground during a roll. Several witnesses observed the airplane maneuvering at low altitude and estimated the airplane's height at 50 feet prior to commencing the roll. One witness said he did not hear any noise that would indicate engine trouble. Investigators established control continuity. The control yoke was U-shaped with a single handle in front of each pilot position. The left handle bent straight out to the left and twisted counterclockwise; the pilot was outside of the airplane on the left side. The pilot's right hand was lacerated in the palm near the thumb. The pilot's brother flew the airplane earlier in the day, and did not experience any difficulties with the airplane or engine. Investigators examined the engine and observed no discrepancies that would have precluded normal operation of the engine. The kit builder's plans indicated that the airplane was not designed for aerobatics.
Probable cause
The pilot performed aerobatics at low altitude and failed to maintain clearance from the gound resulting in a collision with the terrain.
Verbatim NTSB analysis and probable cause from the NTSB dataset
Sources
NTSB record LAX01LA087
- Event ID
- 20010209X00430
- Case number
- LAX01LA087
- 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, coordinates. 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: 95fe9ae5bed4c3f72794d90234d5ada323a89e03f86e9b013782c5e92eb22538; retrieved 2026-09-20T20:40:25.694Z.