WPR12FA216 · Aero Vodochody L-39
Mach 1 Aviation Aero Vodochody L-39 · Accident
From Boulder City Municipal Airport (BVU) to Boulder City Municipal Airport (BVU)
Event
- NTSB case
- WPR12FA216
- 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
- 2 · 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
Aero Vodochody L-39
- Aircraft type
- Aero Vodochody L-39
- 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
- N39WT
- Operator
- Mach 1 Aviation
- Onboard fatalities
- Unknown
- Route
- From Boulder City Municipal Airport (BVU), Boulder City, NVTo Boulder City Municipal Airport (BVU), Boulder City, NV
- Aircraft age
- About 31 years (built 1981)
- 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
- Unknown
- 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
- Unknown or undetermined
- 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
- Not determined › Not determined
Approximate · Coordinates as recorded by the NTSB; no uncertainty radius is established.
NTSB narrative
Upon arrival at the airport, the pilots of the accident airplane and of another airplane flying at the same time briefed the passengers on what to expect during their adventure flight, and they subsequently began the first of four planned flights. The first two flights were uneventful. The accident occurred during the third flight of the day.
A review of the UNICOM radio communications revealed that, shortly after the airplanes took off, the accident pilot announced, "canopy, canopy." The lead airplane pilot asked the accident pilot if he was heading back; the accident pilot's response could not be understood. The accident airplane subsequently made a right descending turn and impacted a berm in desert terrain at a high descent rate and then bounced about 200 feet before coming to rest about a 1/2 mile from the airport. The airplane came to rest between two sets of power lines next to an access road. First responders to the accident site reported that both of the airplane's canopies were closed and that the engine remained running for about 20 minutes before it shut down on its own.
A postaccident examination of the airplane, engine, and forward and aft canopies revealed no mechanical malfunctions or failures that would have precluded normal operation. If one of the canopies had somehow become displaced, the canopy illumination warning light would have activated, and the pilot should have followed the emergency procedures, which state, in part, to land as soon as practical, and likely would have been able to control the airplane and land. The reason for the pilot's radio transmission about the canopy and his initiation of a right descending turn could be determined.
Probable cause
An in-flight emergency followed by a collision with terrain for reasons that could not be determined because postaccident examination of the airframe, engine, and forward and aft canopies revealed no evidence of mechanical malfunctions or failures that would have precluded normal operation.
Verbatim NTSB analysis and probable cause from the NTSB dataset
Sources
NTSB record WPR12FA216
- Event ID
- 20120518X70641
- Case number
- WPR12FA216
- 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: de36f46b76490493136a1516bca00d8239438d1082a162787fd6eee53ddfee40; retrieved 2026-09-13T22:22:42.798Z.