SEA07FA263 · Aero Vodochody L-39C
Aero Vodochody L-39C · Accident: loss of control in flight while maneuvering
From 4SD · Reno/Stead, NV to an unrecorded destination
Event
- NTSB case
- SEA07FA263
- 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
Aero Vodochody L-39C
- Aircraft type
- Aero Vodochody L-39
- 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
- N139DK
- Operator
- Unknown
- Onboard fatalities
- Unknown
- Route
- From 4SD · Reno/Stead, NVTo 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
- 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 › Aircraft control, not possible
- Pilot in command › Wake turbulence, encountered
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 was racing his jet airplane in a scheduled race in a high speed, low-level, racetrack pattern around pylons. Videos were obtained from spectators of the race and reviewed. The videos showed that a Rockwell T-2B (Buckeye) airplane was leading the group of jets, with the accident airplane immediately behind as the group rounded pylon 8. As the accident airplane rounded the pylon, it banked to the left, and then banked to the right. The bank to the right continued through an inverted position as the airplane descended. Upon impact with the ground, the airplane was upright, in a nose low attitude. It is likely that due to the low altitude of the airplane during the accident sequence, there was limited time available for the pilot to recover from the upset. According to the Pilot's Handbook of Aeronautical Knowledge (FAA-H-8083-25), "All aircraft generate a wake while in flight. This disturbance is caused by a pair of counter-rotating vortices trailing from the wingtips. The vortices from larger aircraft pose problems to encountering aircraft. The wake of these aircraft can impose rolling moments exceeding the roll-control authority of the encountering aircraft."
Probable cause
The pilot's encounter with wake turbulence while maneuvering over a race course. Contributing to the accident was the low altitude at which the encounter occurred.
Verbatim NTSB analysis and probable cause from the NTSB dataset
Sources
NTSB record SEA07FA263
- Event ID
- 20070924X01438
- Case number
- SEA07FA263
- 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: f502898c8d21105880f8d304ad1caed38de92d8fd6018d218927668f86a92984; retrieved 2026-09-20T16:17:41.031Z.