ERA12CA054 · Aeros Ltd TRIKE
Aeros Ltd TRIKE · Accident: loss of control in flight on approach
From Amherst, VA to Amherst, VA
Event
- NTSB case
- ERA12CA054
- 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
Aeros Ltd TRIKE
- Aircraft type
- Aeros TRIKE
- 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
- N6111F
- Operator
- Unknown
- Onboard fatalities
- Unknown
- Route
- From Amherst, VATo Amherst, VA
- 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
- 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 student pilot was conducting his first solo flight in the experimental light sport, weight-shift control aircraft. He reported that he lost control of the aircraft during the initial climb after takeoff. According to a witness and the pilot's flight instructor, the pilot stalled the aircraft several times while maneuvering around the traffic pattern. During a right turn onto the final leg of the traffic pattern, the aircraft entered a steep descent and impacted the ground, which resulted in substantial damage to the airframe. The pilot stated that there were no preexisting mechanical anomalies with the aircraft. He reported 16 hours of total flight experience, which included 1 hour in the same make and model as the accident aircraft.
Probable cause
The student pilot's inadequate aircraft control and improper airspeed while maneuvering to land, which resulted in a stall. Contributing to the accident was the pilot's lack of experience in the make and model of the accident aircraft.
Verbatim NTSB analysis and probable cause from the NTSB dataset
Sources
NTSB record ERA12CA054
- Event ID
- 20111031X45752
- Case number
- ERA12CA054
- 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: 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: 8f134e6788f42d6e593239d0ab0a3738f182fa596c7017e09f20f0be7e17a15a; retrieved 2026-09-15T16:54:02.667Z.
- Corrected after a review of the NTSB narrative, which states these values explicitly: departure, destination. Misspelled city name; the accident location field records the same place as Amherst, VA. Misspelled city name; the accident location field records the same place as Amherst, VA.