CEN12LA584 · TOP DOG TD2
TOP DOG TD2 · Accident: collision during takeoff/landing
From Moberg Air Base (MN13) to Moberg Air Base (MN13)
Event
- NTSB case
- CEN12LA584
- 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
- 1 · 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
TOP DOG TD2
- Aircraft type
- Top Dog TD2
- 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
- N71314
- Operator
- Unknown
- Onboard fatalities
- Unknown
- Route
- From Moberg Air Base (MN13), Bemidji, MNTo Moberg Air Base (MN13), Bemidji, MN
- 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
- Landing · flare/touchdown
- 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
- Collision during takeoff/landing
- 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 was returning to the airport after a local flight with a passenger. The passenger stated that when the pilot entered the final approach for the runway, he established a steep nose down descent and a right bank angle, and the aircraft flew straight into the ground. The passenger stated that the pilot did not appear to struggle to maintain or regain control and that he did not give any other indication of a problem. The passenger did not observe any indication of a malfunction of the powerplant or flight controls. Additionally, postaccident examination did not reveal any mechanical issues or anomalies with the aircraft that would have precluded normal operations. Records indicated that the pilot had recently purchased and had about 2 hours of flight time in the weight-shift-control aircraft. There was no indication that he had received any type of transition training regarding the differences between this aircraft and the certificated tricycle gear airplane in which most of his recent flight experience was accumulated.
Probable cause
The pilot's failure to maintain aircraft control and his inadequate flare during landing. Contributing to the accident was the pilot’s failure to obtain training on the operation of the accident aircraft.
Verbatim NTSB analysis and probable cause from the NTSB dataset
Sources
NTSB record CEN12LA584
- Event ID
- 20120829X21045
- Case number
- CEN12LA584
- 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: 8dcba2d02e85f9875eadbbd6b09308e281a9141a4bb7f5d2df56ee296e1a7a5d; retrieved 2026-09-13T22:36:32.260Z.