ERA12CA124 · Chapel Robert B AERIAL
Chapel Robert B AERIAL · Accident: loss of control in flight during initial climb
From Simsbury Airport (4B9) to Simsbury Airport (4B9)
Event
- NTSB case
- ERA12CA124
- 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
Chapel Robert B AERIAL
- Aircraft type
- Chapel Robert AERIAL
- Category
- Helicopter
- 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
- N435AB
- Operator
- Chapel Robert B
- Onboard fatalities
- Unknown
- Route
- From Simsbury Airport (4B9), Simsbury, CTTo Simsbury Airport (4B9), Simsbury, CT
- 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
- Initial climb
- 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
- Environmental issues › Conditions/weather/phenomena
- Personnel issues › Action/decision
Approximate · Coordinates as recorded by the NTSB; no uncertainty radius is established.
NTSB narrative
During run-up, high-speed taxi, and pre-spin of the rotor, the pilot/owner noted no anomalies with the recently certificated experimental amateur-built gyroplane. Although the pilot/owner was not rated in rotorcraft, he had a student endorsement that limited his flights to in-ground-effect only and with no more than 10 knots of wind. The pilot chose to perform a normal takeoff with a 14-knot tailwind that gusted to 24 knots. At 200 feet above the runway, the pilot determined that the rotor rpm was decaying and that the gyroplane would not climb due to the tailwind. He performed a forced landing off the departure end of the runway, and the gyroplane came to rest on its side, which resulted in substantial damage to the airframe. The pilot/owner reported that there were no mechanical deficiencies with the gyroplane.
Probable cause
The pilot's decision to operate the gyroplane outside his endorsement limitations and to depart with a tailwind, which resulted in a forced landing to unsuitable terrain.
Verbatim NTSB analysis and probable cause from the NTSB dataset
Sources
NTSB record ERA12CA124
- Event ID
- 20111226X05742
- Case number
- ERA12CA124
- 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: d8d9291870c8d1a1627d8936dec303d36fe14e8604b9c4160b1cf9c5de4802ef; retrieved 2026-09-15T17:01:28.491Z.