ERA10LA207 · Luciano Edison HA-2 SPORTSTER
Luciano Edison HA-2 SPORTSTER · Accident: powerplant system/component malfunction/failure during takeoff
From Dr Hermenegildo Ortiz Quinones Airport (X63) to Dr Hermenegildo Ortiz Quinones Airport (X63)
Event
- NTSB case
- ERA10LA207
- 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
Luciano Edison HA-2 SPORTSTER
- Aircraft type
- Luciano Edison HA-2
- 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
- N764EL
- Operator
- Luciano Cruz Edison A
- Onboard fatalities
- Unknown
- Route
- From Dr Hermenegildo Ortiz Quinones Airport (X63), Humacao, PRTo Dr Hermenegildo Ortiz Quinones Airport (X63), Humacao, PR
- 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
- Powerplant system/component malfunction/failure
- 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 as recorded by the NTSB; no uncertainty radius is established.
NTSB narrative
Witnesses reported hearing the engine operate at a reduced power setting as the flight was taking off, remaining constant from the point of takeoff to the moment of impact. The gyrocraft was observed climbing to approximately 100 feet and banking hard to the left before it began to descend. A witness noted that the gyrocraft was in a 45-degree nose-low attitude, which he perceived was the pilot's attempt to gain airspeed. Postaccident inspection of the engine revealed that the right magneto was inoperative and several out-of-specification discrepancies were noted with both magnetos, consistent with a lack of maintenance.
Probable cause
The failure of the pilot to maintain control of the gyrocraft while maneuvering after takeoff. Contributing to the accident was the pilot’s operation of the gyrocraft with an inoperative right magneto.
Verbatim NTSB analysis and probable cause from the NTSB dataset
Sources
NTSB record ERA10LA207
- Event ID
- 20100404X22528
- Case number
- ERA10LA207
- 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: 855e203abcfb2fe63ab8e32d62061028737fa9a969770c858022c0c172bcf02b; retrieved 2026-09-13T20:44:55.808Z.