CEN12CA666 · Barche DESTINY XLT
Barche DESTINY XLT · Accident: loss of control in flight during takeoff
From Springfield, NE to Springfield, NE
Event
- NTSB case
- CEN12CA666
- 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
Barche DESTINY XLT
- Aircraft type
- Barche DESTINY XLT
- 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
- N30337
- Operator
- Barche Martin J
- Onboard fatalities
- Unknown
- Route
- From Springfield, NETo Springfield, NE
- 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
- Takeoff
- 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
- Personnel issues › Action/decision
Approximate · Coordinates as recorded by the NTSB; no uncertainty radius is established.
NTSB narrative
The pilot stated the chute on the powered parachute fully inflated during the takeoff from a grass field. Once inflated, the chute began to oscillate, and the aircraft began to bounce. The pilot increased the flare of the chute to get the wheels off the terrain. Once airborne, the landing gear contacted a bean crop located at the end of the grass field. The aircraft continued to gain altitude, and as the pilot decreased the flare, the aircraft began to lose altitude, and, once again, the landing gear scraped the bean crop. The pilot increased the flare and the aircraft began to slowly gain altitude. As the aircraft approached an irrigation boom, the pilot initiated a left turn during which he lost control of the aircraft and it impacted the field. The aircraft sustained broken structural fuselage tubing, and the pilot sustained serious injuries. The pilot reported that he suspected the adjustment knot on the steering line slipped, which resulted in the loss of control during the turn. A witness reported that the powered parachute did not fully inflate and the aircraft did not become airborne until it was three-quarters of the way down the airstrip.
Probable cause
The pilot’s decision to continue the takeoff when the chute oscillations were initially detected.
Verbatim NTSB analysis and probable cause from the NTSB dataset
Sources
NTSB record CEN12CA666
- Event ID
- 20121002X14513
- Case number
- CEN12CA666
- 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: d081ceadd787e2cbfc28de41931c6018261f4a82152c78f0bd7499ad1c94b659; retrieved 2026-09-15T20:04:22.406Z.