GAA15LA191 · Celier Aviation XENON RST
Celier Aviation XENON RST · Accident: loss of control in flight during takeoff
From Livingston Municipal Airport (00R) to Lockhart Municipal Airport (50R)
Event
- NTSB case
- GAA15LA191
- 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
Celier Aviation XENON RST
- Aircraft type
- Celier XENON RST
- Category
- Gyroplane
- 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
- N402ED
- Operator
- Steven Posner
- Onboard fatalities
- Unknown
- Route
- From Livingston Municipal Airport (00R), Livingston, TXTo Lockhart Municipal Airport (50R), Lockhart, TX
- Aircraft age
- About 8 years (built 2007)
- 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 · rejected 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 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
- 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 pilot reported that, during takeoff and as the gyroplane was about 1 ft above the ground, he heard a grinding noise originating from the main rotor area directly above him. The pilot reduced the power to idle to abort the takeoff. The gyroplane drifted off the left side of the runway and rolled onto its left side.
During postaccident examination of the gyroplane, flight control continuity was established, and no anomalies were noted. An examination of the main rotor head revealed that the top of the prerotation plate, which is a large-diameter, circular metal plate with a gear-toothed outer edge used to prerotate the main rotor blades for takeoff, displayed evidence of preaccident circumferential scoring. An examination of the prerotation drive housing showed evidence of scoring on the upper portion of the opening through which the prerotation plate is driven. The top of the upper housing assembly also displayed evidence of scoring. Based on the evidence, it is likely that the prerotation housing became misaligned, which resulted in the grinding noise reported by the pilot. However, the misalignment of the prerotation housing would not have led to the loss of directional control.
Probable cause
The pilot’s loss of directional control after aborting the takeoff due to a grinding noise coming from the main rotor area, which resulted in a runway excursion.
Verbatim NTSB analysis and probable cause from the NTSB dataset
Sources
NTSB record GAA15LA191
- Event ID
- 20150721X55255
- Case number
- GAA15LA191
- 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: d29e80f36b17abb9aa3f6f074d4c59ab6aa4bdedc2537709014228ea09712c47; retrieved 2026-09-16T02:33:18.290Z.