ERA15CA122 · Evolution Aircraft Inc REVO
Evolution Aircraft Inc REVO · Accident: aerodynamic stall/spin on approach
From Zephyrhills Municipal Airport (ZPH) to Flying W Airranch Airport (9FL1)
Event
- NTSB case
- ERA15CA122
- 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
Evolution Aircraft Inc REVO
- Aircraft type
- Evolution 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
- N40EV
- Operator
- Allen Gadoury
- Onboard fatalities
- Unknown
- Route
- From Zephyrhills Municipal Airport (ZPH), Zephyrhills, FLTo Flying W Airranch Airport (9FL1), Bushnell, FL
- Aircraft age
- About 3 years (built 2012)
- 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
- Approach · VFR pattern final
- 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
- Aerodynamic stall/spin
- 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 › Task performance
Approximate · Coordinates as recorded by the NTSB; no uncertainty radius is established.
NTSB narrative
The pilot of the special light sport weight shift aircraft stated that he was attempting to land at a private airstrip for a breakfast fly-in. The pilot had to perform two go-arounds due to other traffic in the airport traffic pattern. During the third attempt, while on final approach to runway 9, the pilot extended his glidepath due to another aircraft back-taxiing on the 3,415-foot-long turf runway. The pilot intended to land further down the runway; however, the airspeed decreased when he extended the glidepath. There was also a wind shift when the aircraft was about 15 feet above the runway, which caused it to stall and impact the runway. The aircraft subsequently came to rest inverted on the runway. Examination of the wreckage by a Federal Aviation Administration inspector revealed substantial damage to both wings. The inspector did not observe any preimpact mechanical malfunctions, nor did the pilot report any. The pilot added that the wind was variable at 9 knots, gusting to 12 knots. The recorded wind information at an airport located about 17 miles from the accident site was similar, indicating variable wind from 020 to 090 degrees at 8 knots.
Probable cause
The pilot's failure to maintain airspeed during approach in variable wind, which resulted in the airplane exceeding its critical angle of attack and experiencing an aerodynamic stall.
Verbatim NTSB analysis and probable cause from the NTSB dataset
Sources
NTSB record ERA15CA122
- Event ID
- 20150205X45356
- Case number
- ERA15CA122
- 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: 5f3a3ce49fe7878261faafbfbf3679822a2350708ec1096f423a833220b3a869; retrieved 2026-09-16T02:04:25.651Z.