CEN14CA179 · Buckeye Industries DREAM MACHINE Trike
Buckeye Industries DREAM MACHINE Trike · Accident: loss of control on ground during takeoff
From Smithville, TX to Smithville, TX
Event
- NTSB case
- CEN14CA179
- 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
- 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
Buckeye Industries DREAM MACHINE Trike
- Aircraft type
- Buckeye DREAM MACHINE
- Category
- Powered Parachute
- 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
- UNREG
- Operator
- Terry D. Brewer · private individual
- Onboard fatalities
- Unknown
- Route
- From Smithville, TXTo Smithville, TX
- 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
- Takeoff
- 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
- Personnel issues › Experience/knowledge
- Personnel issues › Task performance
Approximate · Coordinates as recorded by the NTSB; no uncertainty radius is established.
NTSB narrative
The non-certificated pilot was attempting to take off in his unregistered powered-parachute to the south when a gust of wind caught the parachute before it had fully inflated. The pilot said the engine was running but he was unable to control the aircraft and collided with a tree. He and his passenger were both seriously injured. Weather reported at an airport 32 miles northwest of the accident was wind from 170 degrees at 15 knots gusting to 24 knots.
Probable cause
The operation of an aircraft by a non-certificated pilot. Contributing to the accident was the non-certificated pilot's failure to maintain aircraft control on take-off in gusty wind conditions.
Verbatim NTSB analysis and probable cause from the NTSB dataset
Sources
NTSB record CEN14CA179
- Event ID
- 20140402X02030
- Case number
- CEN14CA179
- Dataset
- full-current
- Source SHA-256
- 5cf380f0061817c0331a6b2d8cc7e0ee3a79bea469a1001dc5c10e56f35f5ab3
Source notes (5)
- 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: 7899a13971476edcf887ad9133cf8cdf64df0edc9cdfd950a9a46734fe3d603d; retrieved 2026-09-15T23:28:17.343Z.
- Corrected after a review of the NTSB narrative and the aircraft's make and model, which establish these values: aircraft category. BUCKEYE INDUSTRIES DREAM MACHINE Trike is a powered parachute; the manufacturer builds nothing else. The NTSB MDB codes it AIR (Airplane), which is how the aircraft was registered rather than what it is.