WPR11CA387 · P&M Aviation GT450
P&M Aviation GT450 · Accident: loss of control in flight while maneuvering
From Driggs/Reed Memorial Airport (KDIJ) to Driggs/Reed Memorial Airport (KDIJ)
Event
- NTSB case
- WPR11CA387
- 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
P&M Aviation GT450
- Aircraft type
- P GT450
- 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
- N988AZ
- Operator
- Unknown
- Onboard fatalities
- Unknown
- Route
- From Driggs/Reed Memorial Airport (KDIJ), Driggs, IDTo Driggs/Reed Memorial Airport (KDIJ), Driggs, ID
- 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 · low-altitude flying
- 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 oper/perf/capability
- Personnel issues › Task performance
Approximate · Coordinates as recorded by the NTSB; no uncertainty radius is established.
NTSB narrative
The pilot reported departing the airport in the light-sport weight-shift-control airplane, and flying southbound along the western slopes of the Teton Mountain Range. The airplane climbed to an altitude of about 8,000 feet mean sea level, and the pilot changed course, approaching a canyon area to the east. As he approached rising terrain the airplane's rate of climb began to diminish. He elected to continue flight towards a plateau, due to ridges which were now encroaching from his left and right. He attempted to increase the airplane's rate of climb, and the airspeed subsequently began to decrease. He reported that as the airplane approached stall speed, he encountered a gust of wind and the airplane stalled. He lowered the airplane's nose, and was able recover control about 20 feet above ground level. He attempted to land ahead on the plateau; however, during the landing roll, the nose landing gear collapsed, and the airplane rolled onto the right wing, substantially damaging both wings. The accident site was located in a remote area at the 9,800-foot-level on the western slope of the mountain range. The pilot utilized a SPOT Global Positioning System (GPS) emergency locator to summon assistance from search and rescue personnel, who located him about 2 hours after the accident. The pilot reported no preimpact mechanical malfunctions or failures with the airframe or engine that would have precluded normal operation.
Probable cause
The pilot's failure to maintain an adequate airspeed, which resulted in a stall mush to ground impact.
Verbatim NTSB analysis and probable cause from the NTSB dataset
Sources
NTSB record WPR11CA387
- Event ID
- 20110817X42542
- Case number
- WPR11CA387
- Dataset
- full-current
- Source SHA-256
- 5cf380f0061817c0331a6b2d8cc7e0ee3a79bea469a1001dc5c10e56f35f5ab3
Source notes (5)
- 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 2011-08-17.
- API snapshot SHA-256: a6219c0426d3ecd42078d408644be66588f65544ec5eba55d705d7b97af118e4; retrieved 2026-09-15T16:37:32.561Z.
- Corrected after a review of the NTSB narrative and the aircraft's make and model, which establish these values: aircraft category. P&M Aviation GT450 is a weight-shift (trike); the manufacturer builds nothing else. The NTSB MDB codes it AIR (Airplane), which is how the aircraft was registered rather than what it is.