LAX08FA134 · Extra Flugzeugproduktions-GMBH EA-300/L
Aviation Performance Solutions Extra Flugzeugproduktions-GMBH EA-300/L · Accident: loss of control in flight while maneuvering
From Mesa Gateway Airport (KIWA) to Mesa Gateway Airport (KIWA)
Event
- NTSB case
- LAX08FA134
- 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
- 2 · 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
Extra Flugzeugproduktions-GMBH EA-300/L
- Aircraft type
- Extra Flugzeugproduktions EA-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
- N133EE
- Operator
- Aviation Performance Solutions
- Onboard fatalities
- Unknown
- Route
- From Mesa Gateway Airport (KIWA), Queens Creek, AZTo Mesa Gateway Airport (KIWA)
- 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 · aerobatics
- Defining eventThe 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
- Aircraft › Aircraft oper/perf/capability
- Aircraft › Aircraft systems
Approximate · Coordinates as recorded by the NTSB; no uncertainty radius is established.
NTSB narrative
The operator noted that the airplane was overdue from a practice upset recovery training flight. Shortly thereafter, the wreckage was located in flat desert terrain about 10 miles east of the airport. The two occupants were located approximately 50 feet from the airplane wreckage and were wearing parachutes. The instructor pilot’s parachute was found to have been activated and partially deployed. The pilot under instruction's parachute had not been activated. Examination of onboard video and audio recordings revealed that the pilot under instruction was seated in the front cockpit and the instructor pilot was seated in the rear cockpit. The crew intended to perform a maneuver that consisted of the first half as a climbing vertical loop with a snap-roll executed at the top, then continue through the back half of the loop. The pilot under instruction, in the front seat, had the controls for this maneuver. At the top of the loop, as the airplane entered into the snap-roll portion of the maneuver, the airplane’s nose dropped and it entered an erect spin. The pilot in the front cockpit stated that something broke. The instructor in the rear cockpit verbalized the recover procedures, then concurred that there was something wrong with the rudder; he released the canopy and gave the command to get out. The pilot in the front cockpit released his harness and moved to sit on the left-hand canopy rail over a period of 14 seconds. It was not until the front pilot was completely out of his seat before the video showed the rear pilot moving to position himself on the left canopy rail, which took 9 seconds. They both fell backwards out of the cockpit nearly simultaneously 23 seconds after the canopy had been released. The estimated altitude that the airplane was at when the crew bailed out was 246 feet above ground level. Multiple examinations of the rudder system did not reveal any evidence of a rudder malfunction or jam.
Probable cause
The loss of aircraft control due to an undetermined rudder malfunction.
Verbatim NTSB analysis and probable cause from the NTSB dataset
Sources
NTSB record LAX08FA134
- Event ID
- 20080514X00668
- Case number
- LAX08FA134
- Dataset
- full-current
- Source SHA-256
- 5cf380f0061817c0331a6b2d8cc7e0ee3a79bea469a1001dc5c10e56f35f5ab3
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: 30a324f5d3b87d02598dfa471c88a09db4e95de79ad0393e758d3b78e031a4da; retrieved 2026-09-13T19:04:22.002Z.