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CEN10LA492 · Infinity

11 Aug 2010 · Little Rock, AR, United States

Infinity · Accident: flight control system malfunction/failure during an uncontrolled descent

From North Little Rock Municipal Airport (ORK) to North Little Rock Municipal Airport (ORK)

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Event

NTSB case
CEN10LA492
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

Infinity

Aircraft type
Infinity INFINITY
Category
Powered Parachute
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
N208FA
Onboard fatalities
Unknown
Route
From North Little Rock Municipal Airport (ORK), N Little Rock, ARTo North Little Rock Municipal Airport (ORK), N Little Rock, AR
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
Uncontrolled descent
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
Flight control system 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 systems
  • Not determined › Not determined

Approximate · Coordinates as recorded by the NTSB; no uncertainty radius is established.

NTSB narrative

While the powered parachute was in a right descending spiral from 800 feet to 200 feet, the pilot and his passenger felt a violent shudder. The pilot could not visually detect anything unusual with the parachute and attempted to return to level flight by reducing engine power and adding opposite control input. Despite his efforts, the aircraft did not respond; it continued in a steep descending turn until it impacted the water. A postaccident examination of the aircraft revealed that the parachute experienced a seam failure at the 5th and 6th cell seam. In addition, a broken control lanyard was found. The reason for the control lanyard’s failure was not determined.

Probable cause

The failure of the control lanyard for undetermined reasons.

Verbatim NTSB analysis and probable cause from the NTSB dataset

Sources

NTSB record CEN10LA492
Event ID
20100823X13759
Case number
CEN10LA492
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: local date, investigation status. Values present in the bulk record are kept.
  • The date is the local date; the NTSB stores the UTC date 2010-08-12.
  • API snapshot SHA-256: f15aa58b1ec39d53bd788ee6958d6a79eabe63dffc05d22172588f2547ddfafc; retrieved 2026-09-15T14:55:16.769Z.