WPR11LA119 · Czech Sportplanes SRO DYNAMIC WT9
Czech Sportplanes SRO DYNAMIC WT9 · Accident: system/component malfunction/failure (non-power) on approach
From Marana Regional Airport (AVQ) to Palm Springs, CA
Event
- NTSB case
- WPR11LA119
- 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
Czech Sportplanes SRO DYNAMIC WT9
- Aircraft type
- Czech Sportplanes DYNAMIC
- 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
- N595DY
- Operator
- Unknown
- Onboard fatalities
- Unknown
- Route
- From Marana Regional Airport (AVQ), Marana, AZTo Palm Springs, CA
- 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
Approximate · Coordinates as recorded by the NTSB; no uncertainty radius is established.
NTSB narrative
The pilot was landing the light sport airplane at the termination of a 2 1/2-hour-long flight. During final approach, the airplane encountered a strong downdraft and the canopy extended to the full up position. The pilot was unable to reach the canopy handle to close it, and the airplane landed hard, likely due to the drag created by the open canopy. The left horizontal stabilizer and left aileron were substantially damaged.
Postaccident examination revealed that the canopy latch did not always fully engage in the cabin frame during the closing operation; the latching pin would sometimes extend about 5 millimeters short of the 15 millimeters of full travel. Thus, it is likely that the pilot's encounter with a strong downdraft could have caused the canopy to flex and open if the latch was not fully engaged.
In 2008, the airplane's manufacturer issued a Mandatory Service Bulletin requiring a revision to the flight manual. The revision stated that, if the canopy locking pin is not securely latched during the pre-flight inspection, the canopy could open in flight. The revision included operational updates specifying procedures for securing an inadvertent canopy opening during various phases of flight. The procedures stated that provided the airplane is flown in a straight and level attitude, the canopy will only partially extend, and could be retracted and locked by hand. The procedures warned that, during uncoordinated flight, the canopy will extend to the full open position, acting as an airbrake and resulting in an excessive descent.
Probable cause
Inadvertent opening of the airplane canopy during the landing approach in a downdraft, which resulted in a rapid descent and hard landing.
Verbatim NTSB analysis and probable cause from the NTSB dataset
Sources
NTSB record WPR11LA119
- Event ID
- 20110202X72636
- Case number
- WPR11LA119
- 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: 3d06861cd5293646903ac799e8d01775f643cc167238d3f9a9a93a2672bf05e7; retrieved 2026-09-15T15:44:48.297Z.