CEN10LA339 · Airborne WINDSPORT EDGE
Airborne WINDSPORT EDGE · Accident: aircraft structural failure while maneuvering
From Ft. Lupton, CO to Ft. Lupton, CO
Narrative check · The NTSB narrative appears to contradict this record's location. Values are shown as recorded, not corrected; compare with the narrative.
Event
- NTSB case
- CEN10LA339
- 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
Airborne WINDSPORT EDGE
- Aircraft type
- Airborne WINDSPORT EDGE
- 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
- N55857
- Operator
- Wenzel Jonathon
- Onboard fatalities
- Unknown
- Route
- From Ft. Lupton, COTo Ft. Lupton, CO
- 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 · aerobatics
- 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
- Aircraft structural 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 structures
- Personnel issues › Action/decision
Approximate · Coordinates as recorded by the NTSB; no uncertainty radius is established.
NTSB narrative
A witness observed the weight-shift aircraft performing aerobatic maneuvers, notably “loops and wingovers,” for about five minutes. The witness stated that during the last maneuver the pilot, who was not certificated, performed what looked like a wingover. The aircraft was at about 1,000 feet above ground level when the wing folded and the aircraft spiraled down, impacting the ground. A postcrash examination of the aircraft at the accident scene showed that the carriage wing attachment hang point was broken. The fracture was consistent with a failure prior to impact. No other anomalies with the aircraft were found. The aircraft’s operating instructions stated that all aerobatic maneuvers including spinning are prohibited.
Probable cause
The pilot intentionally performed prohibited aerobatic maneuvers that damaged the carriage wing attachment hang point and collapsed the wing.
Verbatim NTSB analysis and probable cause from the NTSB dataset
Sources
NTSB record CEN10LA339
- Event ID
- 20100624X91735
- Case number
- CEN10LA339
- 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: 5b6e29734deb4753c08419ab03a0c638abe1c03b78479f817162af03a0184bd4; retrieved 2026-09-13T20:54:24.225Z.