NYC08LA005 · Pelt Mad Max II Special
Pelt Mad Max II Special · Accident: loss of engine power while maneuvering
From Virginia Tech Montgomery Executive Airport (BCB) to an unrecorded destination
Event
- NTSB case
- NYC08LA005
- 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
Pelt Mad Max II Special
- Aircraft type
- Pelt MAD MAX II SPECIAL
- 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
- N26VT
- Operator
- Unknown
- Onboard fatalities
- Unknown
- Route
- From Virginia Tech Montgomery Executive Airport (BCB), Blacksburg, VATo 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 engine power
- 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
- Tree(s)
- 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
- Reason for occurrence undetermined
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 and passenger intended to conduct a local flight in the amateur-built gyroplane, which was equipped with a Subaru EJ-22 automotive engine. The passenger placed two telephone calls prior to departing on the accident flight, and stated that the pilot was experiencing some type of mechanical difficulties with the gyroplane. According to the pilot, after a normal takeoff, the engine lost total power without any prior warning. The gyroplane was about 400 feet above ground level, and with no suitable terrain available for a forced landing, the gyroplane impacted a tree. It then fell about 40 feet to the ground and was engulfed in a post crash fire A Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) inspector examined the "severely burned" wreckage following the accident; however, given the condition of the wreckage, he was unable to determine a specific cause for the loss of engine power.
Probable cause
A loss of engine power for undetermined reasons. Contributing to the accident was a lack of suitable terrain for a forced landing.
Verbatim NTSB analysis and probable cause from the NTSB dataset
Sources
NTSB record NYC08LA005
- Event ID
- 20071019X01625
- Case number
- NYC08LA005
- 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: 6f7de32ed6a0a5cb7671fce6bd1c8852981c96ce4c8e0916a2f82e3b842022f4; retrieved 2026-09-20T16:13:05.777Z.