WPR14FA135 · Evolution Trikes REVO
Birds in Paradise Evolution Trikes REVO · Accident while maneuvering
From Port Allen Airport (PHPA) to Port Allen Airport (PHPA)
Event
- NTSB case
- WPR14FA135
- 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
Evolution Trikes REVO
- Aircraft type
- Evolution Trikes REVO
- 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
- N98EV
- Operator
- Birds in Paradise
- Onboard fatalities
- Unknown
- Route
- From Port Allen Airport (PHPA), Hanapepe, HITo Port Allen Airport (PHPA), Hanapepe, HI
- 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
- 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
- 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
- Unknown or undetermined
- 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
- Personnel issues › Task performance
Approximate · Coordinates as recorded by the NTSB; no uncertainty radius is established.
NTSB narrative
The instructor was taking the student on an introductory instructional flight in a special light-sport weight-shift-control aircraft (trike). After departure, the instructor maneuvered the trike over the ocean and along the coast at an altitude of about 1,000 ft above ground level. About 20 minutes into the flight, the trike descended into terrain, impacted in a near vertical attitude, and was consumed by fire. Although the pilot was in radio communication with another trike, he did not report that he was having any difficulties.
The pilot had recently experienced a problem with the trike's fuel system: during a previous flight, fuel was streaming out of the vent line due to suction created by its position in the airstream. Although the airframe manufacturer explained that this can be normal, the pilot decided to reposition the vent line. Before the accident flight, the pilot had re-routed the clear plastic vent line so that it ran up the mast and aft along the keel (inside the keel pocket) and then bent 180-degrees upward and around to face into the airstream.
The severe impact and fire damage to the trike precluded determination of the events that led to the departure from controlled flight. However, the rerouted vent line may have become constricted due to the rerouted configuration, either by the tie wraps securing it to the keel or by the keel tube riding tightly against the keel pocket in flight. Such a constriction would lead to the fuel system becoming fully depressurized and the engine experiencing a loss of power due to fuel starvation. It is likely that the pilot became distracted by the loss of power and subsequently lost control of the trike.
Probable cause
The pilot's reconfiguration of the fuel venting system, which resulted in a loss of engine power and subsequent loss of aircraft control.
Verbatim NTSB analysis and probable cause from the NTSB dataset
Sources
NTSB record WPR14FA135
- Event ID
- 20140312X35434
- Case number
- WPR14FA135
- 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: 3aaa28f795378a013e720b2f6e7ca3d389eaa8254403d3c6c2f7c877f9c732fe; retrieved 2026-09-14T16:11:41.443Z.