NYC04LA178 · Garrett Stephens Akro
Garrett Stephens Akro · Accident: loss of control in flight while maneuvering
From Blue Heron Airport (N25) to Blue Heron Airport (N25)
Event
- NTSB case
- NYC04LA178
- 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
Garrett Stephens Akro
- Aircraft type
- Garrett STEPHENS AKRO
- 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
- N45KY
- Operator
- Jaroslav V Svoboda · private individual
- Onboard fatalities
- Unknown
- Route
- From Blue Heron Airport (N25), Westport, NYTo Blue Heron Airport (N25)
- 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
- Loss of control in flight
- 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 › Incapacitation
Approximate · Coordinates from the NTSB case API, which marks them as estimated or does not say; no uncertainty radius is established.
NTSB narrative
The pilot had approximately 900 hours of total flight experience, and performed aerobatics often. He had been performing aerobatics throughout the day. During the aerobatic routines, the engine noise would cease during a dive, and then return during the recovery. The pilot had completed about 10 minutes of an approximate 15-minute aerobatic routine. The first 10 minutes seemed normal. However, the airplane then performed an unusual maneuver, never seen before, and descended in a spiraling nose down attitude. It did not appear that the pilot attempted to recover from the dive, or jettison the canopy. Witnesses reported that there was no engine noise during the last maneuver. Examination of the wreckage revealed fuel in the fuel tank. There was no forward travel at the accident site, or rotational signatures on the propeller. The pilot's autopsy report revealed that he had severe coronary artery disease, and may have suffered a momentary loss of consciousness, but blood at the scene was consistent with heart action continuing during impact.
Probable cause
The pilot's loss of aircraft control while maneuvering, due to incapacitation, which resulted in a collision with terrain.
Verbatim NTSB analysis and probable cause from the NTSB dataset
Sources
NTSB record NYC04LA178
- Event ID
- 20040728X01087
- Case number
- NYC04LA178
- 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: 453dace075c7b6673fa4d51eeea8793925664fce8ff2d2ecf4acb3841d1bb439; retrieved 2026-09-20T18:24:22.396Z.