FTW01LA114 · Boykin B J B8M
Boykin B J B8M · Accident: loss of control in flight during initial climb
From Clarksville Municipal Airport (H35) to an unrecorded destination
Event
- NTSB case
- FTW01LA114
- 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
- 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
Boykin B J B8M
- Aircraft type
- Boykin B8
- 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
- N36BJ
- Operator
- Unknown
- Onboard fatalities
- Unknown
- Route
- From Clarksville Municipal Airport (H35), Clarksville, ARTo 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
- Initial climb
- 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
- Substantial
Cause areas
- Flt control syst, yoke/control stick › Loose
- Pilot in command › Preflight planning/preparation, inadequate
Approximate · Coordinates as recorded by the NTSB; no uncertainty radius is established.
NTSB narrative
The pilot completed 3 touch-and-go landings in the gyrocraft at the airport. He stated that his 4th takeoff was "normal;" however, as the gyrocraft was climbing through 70 feet, the pilot noticed that the control stick "became difficult to move left and right." The pilot reduced the engine power to idle, and the gyrocraft started to descend to the left. He applied right pressure on the control stick, and the control "suddenly became free;" however, "left and right control was lost and the gyrocopter descended to the left." The gyrocraft impacted terrain at 45-50 mph. The pilot stated that the control stick had become "loose." He added that he could have conducted "more preflight inspection," and "tighten[ed] all adjuster fittings."
Probable cause
the pilot's inadequate preflight inspection, which resulted in a loose control stick on takeoff, rendering the aircraft uncontrollable.
Verbatim NTSB analysis and probable cause from the NTSB dataset
Sources
NTSB record FTW01LA114
- Event ID
- 20010503X00863
- Case number
- FTW01LA114
- 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: 51362012ca38ba9c42730495bb12c46c84d95e53a5a04b8860d86a905d955a6d; retrieved 2026-09-21T10:09:10.811Z.