CEN14TA116 · Autogyro MTOSPORT
City of Tomball Autogyro MTOSPORT · Accident: loss of control on ground during landing
From David Wayne Hooks Memorial Airport (DWH) to David Wayne Hooks Memorial Airport (DWH)
Event
- NTSB case
- CEN14TA116
- 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
- Government
- 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
Autogyro MTOSPORT
- Aircraft type
- Autogyro MTOSPORT
- Category
- Gyroplane
- 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
- N250TX
- Operator
- City of Tomball
- Onboard fatalities
- Unknown
- Route
- From David Wayne Hooks Memorial Airport (DWH), Spring, TXTo David Wayne Hooks Memorial Airport (DWH), Spring, TX
- Aircraft age
- About 4 years (built 2010)
- 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
- Public Aircraft
- 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
- Landing · landing roll
- 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 on ground
- 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 oper/perf/capability
- Personnel issues › Action/decision
Approximate · Coordinates from the NTSB case API, which marks them as estimated or does not say; no uncertainty radius is established.
NTSB narrative
The pilot stated that, as he approached the runway, the tower controller reported that the wind was 210 degrees at 11 knots, gusting to 19 knots. He performed a go-around due to the wind gusts blowing the gyroplane off course. He was then cleared to land on the parallel runway. The pilot reported that a quartering crosswind existed as he flew the approach; however, he landed the gyroplane without incident. As the pilot was reaching forward to change the pneumatic mode selector button from the "flight" to the "brake" position, a strong westerly wind gust lifted the gyroplane. The right wheel came off the ground, which caused the main rotor blade to strike the runway. The pilot attempted to straighten the gyroplane, but it veered off the runway and rolled onto its right side, which resulted in substantial damage to the empennage and main rotor. The pilot reported no preaccident mechanical malfunctions or failures with the gyroplane that would have precluded normal operation. The calculated crosswind component of 10 knots was below the allowable maximum landing crosswind component of 20 knots. The gyroplane's flight manual states that, after landing, "use lateral control into wind to maintain rotor disc in level flight. Adjust lateral control input as rotor speed decays" before changing the pneumatic mode selector to the "brake" position.
Probable cause
The pilot’s failure to maintain the gyroplane’s rotor control during the landing roll in gusting crosswind conditions.
Verbatim NTSB analysis and probable cause from the NTSB dataset
Sources
NTSB record CEN14TA116
- Event ID
- 20140122X85936
- Case number
- CEN14TA116
- 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, coordinates. 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: d456369eaacd7b6f4db07d16aa1ce5dd703ad08c334572a067796d3f331c0d4c; retrieved 2026-09-15T23:16:18.019Z.