DEN04FA078 · Air Borne Windsports Pty. Ltd. Edge Wing X
Air Borne Windsports Pty. Ltd. Edge Wing X · Accident: loss of control in flight during initial climb
From Fort Bridger Airport (FBR) to Fort Bridger Airport (FBR)
Event
- NTSB case
- DEN04FA078
- 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
- 1 · 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
Air Borne Windsports Pty. Ltd. Edge Wing X
- Aircraft type
- Air Borne Windsports EDGE WING
- 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
- Unknown
- Onboard fatalities
- Unknown
- Route
- From Fort Bridger Airport (FBR), Carter, WYTo Fort Bridger Airport (FBR), Carter, WY
- 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
- Destroyed
Cause areas
- Owner/builder › Aircraft control, 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
As the airport manager walked from his house (located on the airport) to the hangar to go to work, he noticed the pilot's truck was parked in his hangar and his ultralight was gone. The manager became concerned and began a search around the airport. As he drove around the airport, he noticed a white pole sticking up from the ground on the south side of runway 22. When he went to investigate, he found the wreckage of the ultralight. There were no known witnesses to the accident. The ultralight had impacted in a nose down attitude. The pilot had obtained both flight and ground training; however, he had not completed his flight training for solo operations. An instructor had flown the accident ultralight and noted the "lack of control on the wing." The pilot was advised to get the wing repaired, prior to flying it again.
Probable cause
The non-certificated pilot's failure to maintain adequate airspeed resulting in a stall. Factors contributing to the accident include the non-certificated pilot's improper judgment and the his lack of experience.
Verbatim NTSB analysis and probable cause from the NTSB dataset
Sources
NTSB record DEN04FA078
- Event ID
- 20040528X00682
- Case number
- DEN04FA078
- 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: 899a49e9e52c7e541e4945f010c902821f3e68892eacd60aa30a411c1b65a0d2; retrieved 2026-09-20T18:28:12.817Z.