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WPR09CA188 · Hiller Sixchuter Legend XL

7 Apr 2009 · Vancouver, WA, United States

Hiller Sixchuter Legend XL · Accident: collision during takeoff/landing

From Vancouver, WA to Vancouver, WA

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Event

NTSB case
WPR09CA188
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
0 · 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

Hiller Sixchuter Legend XL

Category
Powered Parachute
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
N16503
Operator
Unknown
Onboard fatalities
Unknown
Route
From Vancouver, WATo Vancouver, WA
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
Takeoff
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
Collision during takeoff/landing
DamageDestroyed: beyond practical repair. Substantial: damage that affects the structure, performance or handling and normally needs major repair. Minor: less than that. Glossary
Minor

Cause areas

  • Aircraft › Aircraft oper/perf/capability
  • Personnel issues › Task performance

Approximate · Coordinates as recorded by the NTSB; no uncertainty radius is established.

NTSB narrative

The student pilot attempted a takeoff in his experimental light sport aircraft (powered parachute). On previous occasions, he had successfully become airborne from his backyard. The pilot indicated that during acceleration he was unable to gain adequate lift due to the "stagnant air condition." There was little or no wind and the airplane was carrying a passenger. The powered parachute impacted a garage. The student pilot further reported that he was working on obtaining a sport pilot certificate. The pilot reported that he experienced no preimpact mechanical malfunction with the aircraft.

Probable cause

The pilot's failure to attain/maintain adequate airspeed to become airborne within the distance available for takeoff.

Verbatim NTSB analysis and probable cause from the NTSB dataset

Sources

NTSB record WPR09CA188
Event ID
20090413X20659
Case number
WPR09CA188
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: local date, investigation status. Values present in the bulk record are kept.
  • The date is the local date; the NTSB stores the UTC date 2009-04-08.
  • API snapshot SHA-256: 681ba59deb5c0c09a0c97e8075269510da296d7a587dc046edf80bde557dfa20; retrieved 2026-09-15T10:55:28.207Z.