WPR10FA211 · AirBorne WindSport Edge XT-912-L
AirBorne WindSport Edge XT-912-L · Accident: loss of control in flight while maneuvering
From Ellison Onizuka Kona International Airport at Keāhole (KOA) to Ellison Onizuka Kona International Airport at Keāhole (KOA)
Event
- NTSB case
- WPR10FA211
- 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
AirBorne WindSport Edge XT-912-L
- Aircraft type
- Airborne Windsport EDGE XT-912-L
- Category
- Weight-Shift
- 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
- N34TH
- Operator
- Tedd R. Hecklin · private individual
- Onboard fatalities
- Unknown
- Route
- From Ellison Onizuka Kona International Airport at Keāhole (KOA), Kailua Kona, HITo Ellison Onizuka Kona International Airport at Keāhole (KOA), Kailua Kona, HI
- 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
- 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 structures
- Personnel issues › Action/decision
Approximate · Coordinates as recorded by the NTSB; no uncertainty radius is established.
NTSB narrative
The flight was an introductory flight lesson in a weight-shift-controlled aircraft. Witnesses reported that they observed the aircraft maneuver over the ocean and approach a 450-foot cliff at a 45-degree angle. As the aircraft came close to the cliff, it banked steeply away and rolled inverted. Witnesses reported hearing a loud “pop” and the wings folded around the fuselage (pod). The aircraft descended in a spiraling corkscrew-like manner before impacting the water. The aircraft immediately sank and was never recovered. The pilot likely exceeded the manufacturer’s operating limitations for the aircraft, which specifies a maximum pitch limit of 45 degrees and a maximum bank angle of 60 degrees. Positive flight load factors are limited to 4G and negative loads are prohibited; flight loads between positive 1G and 0G should be avoided. The pilot’s operating handbook cautioned that negative G maneuvers can never be conducted safely and stated that these maneuvers put the aircraft outside of the pilot’s control.
Probable cause
The pilot’s intentional in-flight maneuvers that exceeded the structural limits of the aircraft, which resulted in structural failure of the wings.
Verbatim NTSB analysis and probable cause from the NTSB dataset
Sources
NTSB record WPR10FA211
- Event ID
- 20100421X30547
- Case number
- WPR10FA211
- 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: 9d5127b93c1bd35ee63ad9311ea01c15ab42ad22557ea615ac3c7c11f9d6ba3a; retrieved 2026-09-13T20:46:10.808Z.