SEA04LA012 · Garnett-Robert Barnett J4B
Garnett-Robert Barnett J4B · Accident: loss of control in flight during initial climb
From Prineville Airport (S39) to an unrecorded destination
Event
- NTSB case
- SEA04LA012
- 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
Garnett-Robert Barnett J4B
- Aircraft type
- Garnett Robert BARNETT J4B
- 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
- N9565A
- Operator
- Unknown
- Onboard fatalities
- Unknown
- Route
- From Prineville Airport (S39), Prineville, ORTo 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
- 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
- Stall
- 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 › Airspeed, 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 non-certificated pilot said he didn't know he needed a pilot's license or medical certificate to fly the gyrocopter, and that this was the first time he had ever flown the aircraft. The pilot went up and down the runway a number of times getting the feel of the aircraft. After taking off the pilot said he thought he had the stick too far back and that he stalled the aircraft. The aircraft impacted terrain on the left side of the runway, coming to rest on its right side and tilting over about 45 degrees. The pilot had received no flight training before the flight, but had viewed instructional videotapes about flying gyroplanes.
Probable cause
The pilot's failure to maintain airspeed which resulted in an inadvertent stall during the initial takeoff climb. A factor was the lack of pilot certification.
Verbatim NTSB analysis and probable cause from the NTSB dataset
Sources
NTSB record SEA04LA012
- Event ID
- 20031103X01857
- Case number
- SEA04LA012
- 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: 41df6867d85e6c4cd1932e3edee3446b1739d771de5afc6a4306045fef7cf6cf; retrieved 2026-09-22T08:15:42.902Z.