ATL02LA028 · Pioneer 85
Pioneer 85 · Accident: hard landing
From Eugenio Maria De Hostos Airport (MAZ) to Lajas, PR
Event
- NTSB case
- ATL02LA028
- 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
Pioneer 85
- Aircraft type
- Pioneer 85
- Category
- Ultralight
- 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
- UNREG
- Operator
- Benjamin Brown
- Onboard fatalities
- Unknown
- Route
- From Eugenio Maria De Hostos Airport (MAZ), Mayaguez, PRTo Lajas, PR
- 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
- Flt control syst, yoke/control stick › Overload
- Pilot in command › Flare, improper
- Pilot in command › Go-around, attempted
Approximate · Coordinates as recorded by the NTSB; no uncertainty radius is established.
NTSB narrative
The pilot stated he experienced a strong gust of wind from the south east within 2 or 3 miles from his destination airport. While announcing his position on frequency 122.9 on approach he experienced another gust and subsequent downdraft. He stated, I applied full power and pulled on the elevator and immediately impacted to the left side of the runway. Review of surface weather observation closest to the accident site revealed there were no recorded gusts or downdrafts. Examination of the crash site revealed the airplane collided with the ground in a nose-down attitude separating the nose gear. The pilot applied max power in an attempted go-around, the airplane collided with the top of a hangar and came to rest on the ground inverted. Examination of the airframe and flight control system revealed no evidence of a pre-crash mechanical failure or malfunction. The plastic brackets that hold the control stick in place were broken during the hard landing resulting in a total loss of directional control of the flight control system.
Probable cause
The pilot's decision to attempt a go-around after a hard landing that resulted in the overload failure of the flight control brackets and the loss of flight control. The airplane collided with a building during the attempted go-around.
Verbatim NTSB analysis and probable cause from the NTSB dataset
Sources
NTSB record ATL02LA028
- Event ID
- 20020111X00062
- Case number
- ATL02LA028
- 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: 813f43f5f50ff30527c94c514cb553f4f8b05d5bce37eb81bef881f15deb975d; retrieved 2026-09-21T19:47:54.645Z.