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WPR12LA205 · Infinity 2000

11 May 2012 · Hurricane, UT, United States

Infinity 2000 · Accident: loss of control in flight while maneuvering

From General Dick Stout Field (1L8) to General Dick Stout Field (1L8)

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Event

NTSB case
WPR12LA205
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 2000

Aircraft type
Infinity 2000
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
N541KP
Operator
Unknown
Onboard fatalities
Unknown
Route
From General Dick Stout Field (1L8), Hurricane, UTTo General Dick Stout Field (1L8), Hurricane, UT
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 › Action/decision

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

NTSB narrative

The pilot reported that during a local flight in the powered parachute, he descended into a river canyon and proceeded downstream at an altitude of 50 to 100 feet above the canyon bottom. As he reached an area where the canyon narrowed, the pilot encountered terrain-induced turbulence and gusting wind that resulted in the powered parachute descending to within 10 feet of the canyon floor. When the pilot attempted to regain altitude, the gondola of the powered parachute impacted a rock outcropping. The pilot stated that he likely encountered an air mass that was moving up the canyon and gained velocity due to the narrowing of the canyon, creating the turbulence and gusts. He noted that the accident could have been prevented by maintaining a higher altitude above the ground when flying in such terrain.

Probable cause

The pilot's decision to fly at a low altitude in a canyon, which resulted in insufficient altitude to recover from an encounter with terrain-induced turbulence.

Verbatim NTSB analysis and probable cause from the NTSB dataset

Sources

NTSB record WPR12LA205
Event ID
20120514X73210
Case number
WPR12LA205
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: daef3051e25d203c35157bebcd4b12f3fd54ac908729ca843d3f65210288e0cc; retrieved 2026-09-15T18:06:55.462Z.