ERA15LA174 · G-Dawg LLC JUST ACFT HIGHLANDER
G-Dawg LLC JUST ACFT HIGHLANDER · Accident: loss of control in flight on approach
From Walhalla, SC (private airstrip) to Walhalla, SC (private airstrip)
Event
- NTSB case
- ERA15LA174
- 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
G-Dawg LLC JUST ACFT HIGHLANDER
- Aircraft type
- G Dawg JUST ACFT HIGHLANDER
- Category
- Airplane
- 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
- N376CG
- Operator
- G-Dawg
- Onboard fatalities
- Unknown
- Route
- From Walhalla, SC (private airstrip)To Walhalla, SC (private airstrip)
- Aircraft age
- About 6 years (built 2009)
- 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 go-around
- 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
- Environmental issues › Conditions/weather/phenomena
- Personnel issues › Task performance
Approximate · Coordinates from the NTSB case API, which marks them as estimated or does not say; no uncertainty radius is established.
NTSB narrative
The private pilot was demonstrating the experimental, light sport airplane to a potential buyer. The wind was calm when they departed, but gusty when they returned about 30 minutes later. Due to the runway's sloping terrain, all takeoffs were performed in one direction and all landings in the opposite direction. The pilot estimated that a 20-mph tailwind prevailed during final approach, gusting to between 25 and 30 mph. The airplane approached the runway too fast, and the pilot conducted a go-around. He increased the engine power to full, and the airplane began to climb, but as it approached trees at the end of the runway, it encountered a wind gust and stopped climbing. The airplane then impacted a treetop, descended, and impacted the ground.
Examination of the wreckage did not reveal evidence of any preimpact mechanical malfunctions or failures that would have precluded normal operation nor did the pilot report any anomalies. The recorded wind about the time of the accident at an airport located 10 miles east of the accident site indicated that a 12-knot tailwind, gusting to 21 knots, existed.
Probable cause
The pilot's failure to maintain airplane control during a go-around in gusting tailwind conditions, which resulted in a collision with trees.
Verbatim NTSB analysis and probable cause from the NTSB dataset
Sources
NTSB record ERA15LA174
- Event ID
- 20150331X62747
- Case number
- ERA15LA174
- 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: 5fb8d082bce9408d752c78974c9c7fc759a59656c7640eba180f927677679990; retrieved 2026-09-16T02:12:06.202Z.