NYC08LA059 · Wootton, John Aero Canard
Wootton, John Aero Canard · Accident during initial climb
From Statesville Regional Airport (SVH) to Statesville Regional Airport (SVH)
Event
- NTSB case
- NYC08LA059
- 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
Wootton, John Aero Canard
- Aircraft type
- Wootton John AERO CANARD
- 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
- N199JW
- Operator
- Unknown
- Onboard fatalities
- Unknown
- Route
- From Statesville Regional Airport (SVH), Statesville, NCTo Statesville Regional Airport (SVH), Statesville, NC
- 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
- Initial climb
- 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
- Miscellaneous/other
- 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
- Window, canopy › Open
Approximate · Coordinates as recorded by the NTSB; no uncertainty radius is established.
NTSB narrative
As the amateur-built Aero Canard was departing on a local flight, the canopy opened as the airplane lifted off the runway. After the airplane had climbed to an altitude of about 100 feet above the ground, a fabric cover exited the cockpit, and went through the wooden propeller assembly located aft of the fuselage. The airplane continued to climb slowly, and subsequently impacted trees and the ground. A shredded fabric cover and 1-foot sections of each propeller blade tip were located near the runway. All other portions of the airplane were accounted for at the accident site. Examination of the main canopy latch mechanism and a secondary "safety" latch did not reveal evidence of any preimpact failures; however, the position of the latches at the time of the takeoff could not be determined. The airplane's most recent inspection was performed about the time the pilot purchased the airplane, which was approximately 6 months prior to the accident.
Probable cause
An inadvertent opening of the canopy during takeoff.
Verbatim NTSB analysis and probable cause from the NTSB dataset
Sources
NTSB record NYC08LA059
- Event ID
- 20071227X01998
- Case number
- NYC08LA059
- 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. 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: 00b81d28e37561b104d7bf31d2f33507206b5c30fab6e984bf19c0d41d27d27c; retrieved 2026-09-20T16:03:28.455Z.