CHI05LA163 · Becker RAF 2000
Becker RAF 2000 · Accident: loss of control in flight on approach
From Gladwin Zettel Memorial Airport (GDW) to Gladwin Zettel Memorial Airport (GDW)
Event
- NTSB case
- CHI05LA163
- 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
Becker RAF 2000
- Aircraft type
- Becker 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
- N481KB
- Operator
- Unknown
- Onboard fatalities
- Unknown
- Route
- From Gladwin Zettel Memorial Airport (GDW), Gladwin, MITo Gladwin Zettel Memorial Airport (GDW), Gladwin, MI
- 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
- Approach · VFR pattern downwind
- 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 › 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
The amateur built gyrocopter collided with the terrain following a loss of control while on the downwind leg of a traffic pattern. The accident occurred on the third traffic circuit of the flight. A witness reported seeing the gyrocopter in a tight traffic pattern at an altitude of about 150 feet above the ground. He stated the gyrocopter then entered a 25 to 30 degree nose down attitude which it maintained for 3 to 4 seconds prior to entering a 45 degree nose down attitude. The witness stated the gyrocopter lost about one-third of its altitude prior to the main rotor blades folding up and over the gyrocopter, possibly striking the propeller blades. He stated the nose of the gyrocopter then rose and it flipped over backwards. He stated the gyrocopter spun backward and sideways until it impacted the ground. The accident occurred during the pilot's first solo flight in the gyrocopter. Inspection of the wreckage did not reveal any mechanical failure/malfunction which would have resulted in the loss of control.
Probable cause
The pilot's failure to maintain control of the gyrocopter while in the traffic pattern. A factor associated with the accident was the pilot's lack of gyrocopter experience.
Verbatim NTSB analysis and probable cause from the NTSB dataset
Sources
NTSB record CHI05LA163
- Event ID
- 20050708X00957
- Case number
- CHI05LA163
- 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: 0ee8970800c442f7064807ee43d8f1dcebf84a66d3bacf46dfbaa0d4de65f889; retrieved 2026-09-20T17:59:15.177Z.