CEN14LA419 · Evolution Trikes REVO
Evolution Aircraft Evolution Trikes REVO · Accident: loss of control in flight en route
From Lansing Municipal Airport (KIGQ) to Hastings Airport (9D9)
Event
- NTSB case
- CEN14LA419
- 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
- Instrument 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
- N214EV
- Operator
- Evolution Aircraft
- Onboard fatalities
- Unknown
- Route
- From Lansing Municipal Airport (KIGQ), Lansing, ILTo Hastings Airport (9D9), Hastings, MI
- Aircraft age
- Built the same year (2014)
- 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
- En route
- 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
- Substantial
Cause areas
- Aircraft › Aircraft oper/perf/capability
- Aircraft › Aircraft structures
- Environmental issues › Conditions/weather/phenomena
- Personnel issues › Action/decision
- Personnel issues › Task performance
Approximate · Coordinates as recorded by the NTSB; no uncertainty radius is established.
NTSB narrative
The noninstrument-rated sport pilot was returning to his home airport on a personal cross-country flight in a recently manufactured weight-shift-control aircraft. A witness located near the accident site reported hearing an "engine revving up," followed by a "loud bang." She subsequently noticed the aircraft's wing descending out of the clouds "like a maple leaf." The aircraft's wing impacted a cornfield, and the fuselage was found about 600 yards east of the wing.
Examination of the wreckage revealed that the hang block and three attachment bolts, both ends of the control bar, the bolt holding the safety cable to the mast, and the left wing leading edge tube were fractured. All of the fracture surfaces were consistent with overstress. The fracture of the left wing leading edge tube toward the aft direction was consistent with a negative g event. The wreckage signatures of a negative g event and overstress were consistent with a loss of aircraft control and the subsequent in-flight breakup of the aircraft.
The pilot had a demonstrated history of noncompliance with Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) regulations. He was counseled by FAA personnel for flying in less than visual flight rules conditions about 1 month before the accident. Instrument meteorological conditions (IMC), including ceilings at 500 ft above ground level, existed along the route of flight at the time of the accident. It is likely that the pilot improperly decided to continue visual flight into IMC and that he subsequently lost control of the aircraft, which resulted in the overstress and in-flight breakup of the aircraft.
Probable cause
The noninstrument-rated pilot’s decision to continue visual flight into instrument meteorological conditions, which resulted in his loss of aircraft control and the resultant overstress and in-flight breakup of the weight-shift-control aircraft.
Verbatim NTSB analysis and probable cause from the NTSB dataset
Sources
NTSB record CEN14LA419
- Event ID
- 20140811X72144
- Case number
- CEN14LA419
- 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: 17d9399ca2fe79c02cccd4602fd7bb4bfbd5c21a6f96f5e8311a585ecac7e1b3; retrieved 2026-09-14T17:23:36.012Z.