ERA09CA534 · Aeromot AMT200 S
Aeromot AMT200 S · Accident: loss of control on ground during landing
From Wheeling Ohio County Airport (HLG) to Wheeling Ohio County Airport (HLG)
Event
- NTSB case
- ERA09CA534
- 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
Aeromot AMT200 S
- Aircraft type
- Aeromot AMT200
- 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
- N46068
- Operator
- David Shaeffer
- Onboard fatalities
- Unknown
- Route
- From Wheeling Ohio County Airport (HLG), Wheeling, WVTo Wheeling Ohio County Airport (HLG), Wheeling, WV
- 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
- Landing · landing roll
- 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 on ground
- 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
- Personnel issues › Task performance
Approximate · Coordinates from the NTSB case API, which marks them as estimated or does not say; no uncertainty radius is established.
NTSB narrative
According to the pilot, he had just leveled off the motor glider after an initial climb when the left canopy latch loosened and the canopy raised up about 2 inches. With wind blowing into the cockpit area, the pilot returned to the departure airport and made a straight-in approach, landing left of runway centerline. The motor glider subsequently veered to the left during the landing rollout and groundlooped, striking runway signage and lighting, and substantially damaging the composite left wing. According to a Federal Aviation Administration inspector, there were no preaccident mechanical anomalies noted with the motor glider, and the canopy latch system functioned normally. The pilot, who reported 39 hours in make and model, also noted "vision problems with airflow into cockpit" during the approach and landing. Winds, recorded at the airport about the time of the accident, were variable, between 3 and 6 knots.
Probable cause
The pilot’s failure to maintain directional control during the landing. Contributing to the accident was the pilot's failure to properly secure the canopy latch which resulted in an in-flight canopy opening.
Verbatim NTSB analysis and probable cause from the NTSB dataset
Sources
NTSB record ERA09CA534
- Event ID
- 20090923X43402
- Case number
- ERA09CA534
- 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, 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: 5f89ce6e8953b46b5bde1d6abdd1999d93249ca4f4d467e880c33011c7b37a35; retrieved 2026-09-15T13:20:33.280Z.