CEN13LA225 · Atkins ACRO-SPORT I
Atkins ACRO-SPORT I · Accident: flight control system malfunction/failure while maneuvering
From Le Gros Memorial Airport (3R2) to Le Gros Memorial Airport (3R2)
Event
- NTSB case
- CEN13LA225
- 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
- 0
- 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
Atkins ACRO-SPORT I
- Aircraft type
- Atkins ACRO-SPORT
- 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
- N5897
- Operator
- Unknown
- Onboard fatalities
- Unknown
- Route
- From Le Gros Memorial Airport (3R2), Crowley, LATo Le Gros Memorial Airport (3R2), Crowley, LA
- Aircraft age
- About 39 years (built 1974)
- 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
- Maneuvering · aerobatics
- 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
- Flight control system malfunction/failure
- 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 systems
- Organizational issues › Development
Approximate · Coordinates as recorded by the NTSB; no uncertainty radius is established.
NTSB narrative
The pilot reported that, while practicing aerobatics, he pulled the control stick aft and that something in the elevator control system then "broke," and the airplane's nose subsequently started to drop. The pilot established that he still had aileron and rudder control; however, he was not able to control the airplane's pitch. The pilot chose to parachute from the airplane and subsequently landed in a field. The airplane crashed into a field south of the pilot's location and was substantially damaged during the impact.
An examination of the flight control system revealed several points of separation along the elevator control tube and elevator torque tube assembly. The weld area between the left side elevator torque tube and the left elevator horn was fractured, and the fracture surfaces showed large areas of preexisting weld anomalies, including lack of fusion and incomplete penetration. Similar weld anomalies were present between the right elevator components. The examinations determined that incorrect weld filler metal was used. The loads that caused the separation of the left elevator torque tube were likely high but within the design specifications, and the separation likely resulted from the loads being applied to the poor quality welds, which appeared to have occurred during original manufacture.
Probable cause
The failure of the left elevator torque tube due to poor quality welds by the manufacturer, which resulted in the loss of pitch control.
Verbatim NTSB analysis and probable cause from the NTSB dataset
Sources
NTSB record CEN13LA225
- Event ID
- 20130412X94025
- Case number
- CEN13LA225
- 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: e64aab46d8f9a3c859d5da104656f23ffed89585125737c6170b58a78b71b40a; retrieved 2026-09-15T21:17:14.066Z.