CEN10FA278 · Evektor Aerotechnik Sportstar Plus
Evektor Aerotechnik Sportstar Plus · Accident: system/component malfunction/failure (non-power) on approach
From Covey Trails Airport (X09) to Covey Trails Airport (X09)
Event
- NTSB case
- CEN10FA278
- 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
Evektor Aerotechnik Sportstar Plus
- Aircraft type
- Evektor SPORTSTAR
- 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
- N121EV
- Operator
- Unknown
- Onboard fatalities
- Unknown
- Route
- From Covey Trails Airport (X09), Richmond, TXTo Covey Trails Airport (X09), Richmond, TX
- 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
- Approach · VFR pattern final
- 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
- System/component malfunction/failure (non-power)
- 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 › Task performance
Approximate · Coordinates as recorded by the NTSB; no uncertainty radius is established.
NTSB narrative
The airplane was on final approach when it suddenly nosed down and impacted terrain about 400 feet short of the approach end of the runway. The airplane came to rest upright. The forward hinged cockpit canopy separated from the airplane during the impact and came to rest about 20 feet from the main wreckage. The pilot (who later died from his injuries) told several witnesses and first responders that the cockpit canopy came open in flight and he subsequently lost control of the airplane. A postaccident examination of the airplane and the cockpit canopy latch mechanism revealed no preimpact mechanical malfunctions or failures that would have precluded normal operations. The canopy latch was likely not secured properly before takeoff because there were no witness marks on the latch mechanism.
Probable cause
The opening of the cockpit canopy in-flight due to improper latching, which resulted in a loss of control and impact with terrain.
Verbatim NTSB analysis and probable cause from the NTSB dataset
Sources
NTSB record CEN10FA278
- Event ID
- 20100601X41113
- Case number
- CEN10FA278
- 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: 557986ba8efdf284b0cd86df53cbd5da9803446208cf0da468f52b0714b9d463; retrieved 2026-09-13T20:50:29.123Z.