DFW05FA242 · Akro Tech Aviation Inc. Giles G-300
Akro Tech Aviation Inc. Giles G-300 · Accident: airframe, component or system failure en route
From F29 · Yukon, OK to F29
Event
- NTSB case
- DFW05FA242
- 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
Akro Tech Aviation Inc. Giles G-300
- Aircraft type
- Akro Tech Aviation Inc Giles G-300
- 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
- N300NW
- Operator
- Unknown
- Onboard fatalities
- Unknown
- Route
- From F29 · Yukon, OKTo F29
- 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
- En route · climb to cruise
- 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
- Airframe, component or system failure
- 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
- Pilot in command › Incapacitation
- Window, canopy › Separation
Approximate · Coordinates from the NTSB case API, which marks them as estimated or does not say; no uncertainty radius is established.
NTSB narrative
The 6,700-hour commercial pilot had just started a practice session in preparation for an aerobatic competition when she initiated a 45-to-55-degree nose-up climb. As the airplane began to ascend, witnesses observed the acrylic canopy separate in fragments from the airplane. The airplane continued to climb before it rolled to the right and entered an approximate 60-degree nose-down descent. The engine remained at full power during the descent and no flight control movements were observed after the canopy had separated. A witness made several attempts to contact the pilot via radio, but there was no response. Examination of the canopy revealed that it fastened to the fuselage by two metal hinges that fastened directly to the fuselage with four flat-head bolts. There was no evidence of bonding material or adhesive in the area of the fuselage underneath the mounting plate of either hinge. The forward hinge was never located; however, a closer view of the location where the front canopy hinge was located indicated there were "rub" marks on the surface of the fuselage underneath the hinge pin lock wire, which was indicative to contact wear with the bent end of the hinge pin. The hinge pin lock wire was also worn and flattened in areas, which corresponded to contact wear with the bent end of the hinge pin. The rear hinge was fractured into two pieces through the mounting plate at the fuselage side of the hinge. Deformation was observed around the rivet holes where the hinge was attached to the fuselage, indicative of overstress. Bolt holes in the mounting plate at the canopy side of the hinge were deformed, and the edges of the holes were cracked or fractured, consistent with overstress. One of the four bolts remained in the mounting plate on the canopy side of the hinge. Rub marks similar to those found in the area of the front hinge pin lock wire were not present. In addition, there was no damage to the hinge pin lock wire. A review of aircraft logbooks revealed that the airplane was built in 1997 and had accrued approximately 900 hours at the time of the accident.
Probable cause
The catastrophic separation of the canopy as result of the failure of the forward canopy hinge while performing aerobatics and the subsequent incapacitation of the pilot.
Verbatim NTSB analysis and probable cause from the NTSB dataset
Sources
NTSB record DFW05FA242
- Event ID
- 20050930X01555
- Case number
- DFW05FA242
- 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: 3f6be26e733e656067d02164fbad7544f68432762220d4d71f3a27bae86b3c0a; retrieved 2026-09-20T17:53:08.843Z.