LAX02LA149 · Sierra RAF 2000 GTX-SE
Sierra RAF 2000 GTX-SE · Accident: roll over during takeoff
From Lompoc Airport (LPC) to an unrecorded destination
Event
- NTSB case
- LAX02LA149
- 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
Sierra RAF 2000 GTX-SE
- Aircraft type
- Sierra RAF-2000
- 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
- N256SB
- Operator
- Unknown
- Onboard fatalities
- Unknown
- Route
- From Lompoc Airport (LPC), Lompoc, 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
- Takeoff
- 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
- Roll over
- 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 › Compensation for wind conditions, inadequate
Approximate · Coordinates from the NTSB case API, which marks them as estimated or does not say; no uncertainty radius is established.
NTSB narrative
The winds were reported ast 270 degrees at 14 knots about the time when the accident occurred. The takeoff was conducted on runway 25. According to the pilot, he increased power to initiate takeoff with a corresponding increase in rotor speed from 208 rpm to above 212 rpm. The aircraft began to roll about 5 mph with the increase in power. As the aircraft lifted off, it started to "lean to the right" and he took corrective action with left stick input that for a half a second was effective. However, the aircraft conitnued in a right turn, despite the control input. The pilot reported that the control stick seemed to be stuck or frozen in place, and he was not able to move he stick to the left. The aircraft continued in the right turn, until the rotor blades struck the ground. The aircraft slid off the right, and came to rest along the right side of the runway.
Probable cause
The pilot's failure to compensate for wind condition.
Verbatim NTSB analysis and probable cause from the NTSB dataset
Sources
NTSB record LAX02LA149
- Event ID
- 20020510X00657
- Case number
- LAX02LA149
- 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: 5832265a8c0a731a68ae620900cb4cbfe1dbfe510482037e295aeafcac4e3d2f; retrieved 2026-09-22T10:57:28.931Z.