WPR13LA347 · Airborne Windsports PTY Ltd EDGE XT-912-L
Airborne Windsports PTY Ltd EDGE XT-912-L · Accident: loss of control in flight during initial climb
From Red Bluff Municipal Airport (KRBL) to Chico Regional Airport (KCIC)
Event
- NTSB case
- WPR13LA347
- 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
Airborne Windsports PTY Ltd EDGE XT-912-L
- Aircraft type
- Airborne Windsports EDGE XT-912-L
- 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
- N123FJ
- Operator
- Unknown
- Onboard fatalities
- Unknown
- Route
- From Red Bluff Municipal Airport (KRBL), Red Bluff, CATo Chico Regional Airport (KCIC), Chico, CA
- Aircraft age
- About 5 years (built 2008)
- 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
- Aircraft › Aircraft systems
- Personnel issues › Action/decision
- Personnel issues › Task performance
Approximate · Coordinates as recorded by the NTSB; no uncertainty radius is established.
NTSB narrative
A witness reported observing the weight-shift tricycle airplane take off, make a very steep climb, roll right, and then descend vertically to the ground. A postimpact fire ensued and destroyed the airplane. The witness also reported hearing full-power engine noise coming from the airplane throughout the climb and vertical descent. Another witness, who arrived on-scene immediately after the accident, stated that the pilot was immobile and about 6 ft away from the wreckage. An autopsy of the pilot did not reveal any injuries that are typically associated with seatbelt usage, and it is likely that he was not wearing his seatbelt at the time of the accident. A flight instructor who instructs in weight-shift tricycle airplanes stated that, without the seatbelt fastened, moving the airplane's weight around would pull the pilot out of the seat.
Probable cause
The pilot's failure to properly secure himself in the cockpit with the seat belt, which resulted in his inability to control the airplane after takeoff.
Verbatim NTSB analysis and probable cause from the NTSB dataset
Sources
NTSB record WPR13LA347
- Event ID
- 20130729X63745
- Case number
- WPR13LA347
- 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: 80fddda98f1ea385af5b1721ad63abc36b3c1f3208a4e750787f6d698eef3ea9; retrieved 2026-09-14T16:01:36.183Z.