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IAD01LA106 · Digimas Starduster Too

23 Sept 2001 · Watertown, CT, United States

Digimas Starduster Too · Accident: in flight collision with object while maneuvering

From Waterbury Oxford Airport (OXC) to an unrecorded destination

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Event

NTSB case
IAD01LA106
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

Digimas Starduster Too

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
N49894
Operator
Unknown
Onboard fatalities
Unknown
Route
From Waterbury Oxford Airport (OXC), Waterbury, CTTo 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 object
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
Tree(s)
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 › Inattentive

Approximate · Coordinates from the NTSB case API, which marks them as estimated or does not say; no uncertainty radius is established.

NTSB narrative

The student pilot departed solo on a local, personal flight and was maneuvering the home-built airplane at low altitude. A police officer reported that he had seen the airplane perform loops and barrel rolls. The student pilot said that he was in level flight at low altitude as he approached rising terrain. He said that as he struggled to tune a radio, he flew the airplane into trees and terrain. The pilot said there were no mechanical deficiencies with the airplane. According to the pilot, "I screwed up, there was nothing wrong with the airplane."

Probable cause

the student pilot's inattention while maneuvering at low altitude, which resulted in collision with trees. A factor in the accident was the student pilot's intentional low-altitude maneuvering.

Verbatim NTSB analysis and probable cause from the NTSB dataset

Sources

NTSB record IAD01LA106
Event ID
20011010X02060
Case number
IAD01LA106
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: 102f56efacfcad8a07a1fe986dca8811d7258c06ba1b8cbc60becae10e61f99f; retrieved 2026-09-21T09:49:05.664Z.