ERA13LA020 · Airborne Windsports PTY Ltd XT-912
Airborne Windsports PTY Ltd XT-912 · Accident: loss of control in flight during initial climb
From Winter Haven Regional Airport - Gilbert Field (GIF) to Winter Haven Regional Airport - Gilbert Field (GIF)
Event
- NTSB case
- ERA13LA020
- 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
Airborne Windsports PTY Ltd XT-912
- Aircraft type
- Airborne Windsports XT-912
- 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
- N811RW
- Operator
- Floatplanes & Amphibs
- Onboard fatalities
- Unknown
- Route
- From Winter Haven Regional Airport - Gilbert Field (GIF), Winter Haven, FLTo Winter Haven Regional Airport - Gilbert Field (GIF), Winter Haven, FL
- Aircraft age
- About 6 years (built 2006)
- 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
- Destroyed
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
A witness reported observing the experimental ultralight aircraft conducting touch-and-go landings before the accident. He recalled that it seemed "a bit windy" for an ultralight to be operating. He estimated that the wind was between 10 and 15 knots, but he could not judge the wind gusts. Immediately after takeoff for the accident flight, the aircraft made a hard right bank, with a bank angle of between about 60 and 90 degrees, about 100 feet above the ground. The witness reported that the aircraft's motor sounded as if it was at full power and not malfunctioning. The aircraft impacted the ground about 100 to 150 yards from where witnesses were standing. According to the Pilot's Operating Handbook, the maximum crosswind component for the airplane was 12 knots. Airport weather information indicated the wind was 080 degrees at 12 knots about 20 minutes before the accident. It is likely that the aircraft encountered crosswind conditions and that the pilot then failed to maintain aircraft control.
Probable cause
The pilot’s failure to maintain aircraft control during takeoff in crosswind conditions, which resulted in collision with terrain.
Verbatim NTSB analysis and probable cause from the NTSB dataset
Sources
NTSB record ERA13LA020
- Event ID
- 20121015X92940
- Case number
- ERA13LA020
- 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: 9a9a1bb5f14d705e1ebe2343649ebccac79dd21c8a1fb20bebf21bf0ca0b4e62; retrieved 2026-09-14T15:46:10.494Z.