WPR13FA013 · Aeropro CZ A240
Aeropro CZ A240 · Accident: collision during takeoff/landing during initial climb
From Half Moon Bay Airport (HAF) to Apple Valley, CA
Event
- NTSB case
- WPR13FA013
- 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
- Instrument Meteorological Cond
Aeropro CZ A240
- Aircraft type
- Aeropro CZ A240
- 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
- N72AH
- Operator
- Unknown
- Onboard fatalities
- Unknown
- Route
- From Half Moon Bay Airport (HAF), Half Moon Bay, CATo Apple Valley, CA
- 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
- 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
- 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
- Environmental issues › Conditions/weather/phenomena
- Personnel issues › Action/decision
- Personnel issues › Psychological
- Personnel issues › Task performance
Approximate · Coordinates as recorded by the NTSB; no uncertainty radius is established.
NTSB narrative
The sport pilot was departing on a cross-country flight about the time of a reported ¾ mile visibility, mist and a 300 foot overcast ceiling.
Recorded radar data identified the airplane during the initial takeoff ascending and turning left to an altitude of 1,100 feet mean sea level (msl). As the left turn continued to an easterly heading, the airplane descended to an altitude of about 600 feet msl. The last recorded radar target was less than a 1/4 mile from the accident site. The wreckage was located about 400 yards west of the airport on a bluff that overlooked and paralleled the runway. Examination of the accident site revealed ground scars and airplane damage consistent with a descent profile continuing to impact.
Analyses of weather information and witness statements were consistent with conditions likely to have produced restricted visibility over the area at the time of the accident. These restricted visibility conditions would have been conducive to the development of spatial disorientation, and the pilot’s subsequent loss of airplane control while turning, most likely in an attempt to return to the runway.
A postaccident examination of the airframe and engine revealed no evidence of mechanical malfunctions or failures that would have precluded normal operation.
Probable cause
The non-instrument-rated pilot’s decision to depart into instrument meteorological conditions, which resulted in spatial disorientation and a subsequent loss of airplane control.
Verbatim NTSB analysis and probable cause from the NTSB dataset
Sources
NTSB record WPR13FA013
- Event ID
- 20121016X61509
- Case number
- WPR13FA013
- 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: 411f8bd035af545a16993ed11c5088131b7ded6d9092d4b79539616d7e01d4b4; retrieved 2026-09-14T15:46:14.014Z.