CEN15LA344 · Erickson Larry D RAF 2000 GT
Erickson Larry D RAF 2000 GT · Accident: loss of control in flight while maneuvering
From Humboldt Municipal Airport (0K7) to Humboldt Municipal Airport (0K7)
Event
- NTSB case
- CEN15LA344
- 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
- Visual Meteorological Cond
Erickson Larry D RAF 2000 GT
- Aircraft type
- Erickson Larry RAF-2000
- 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
- N315LK
- Operator
- Erickson Larry D
- Onboard fatalities
- Unknown
- Route
- From Humboldt Municipal Airport (0K7), Humboldt, IATo Humboldt Municipal Airport (0K7), Humboldt, IA
- 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
- Maneuvering · low-altitude flying
- 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
- Also codedOther events the NTSB coded in the sequence, such as a wire strike after a loss of power. Flight Findings uses them for its kinds of event. Glossary
- Tree(s)
- 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 › Psychological
- 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 sport pilot and passenger were on a local flight in the gyroplane. The passenger reported that, after about 30 minutes of flight, the pilot made a low-altitude pass over the passenger's home. The gyroplane started to descend below the tallest trees on the property at a low-power setting, and as it approached the ground, the pilot rapidly increased engine power, likely to stop the descent. The gyroplane subsequently banked right and impacted a tree in the passenger's front yard. Postaccident examination of the gyroplane revealed no evidence of any preimpact failures, and no evidence was found indicating that the rotor blades struck the rudder or propeller blades.
Probable cause
The pilot’s loss of gyroplane control while maneuvering at low altitude.
Verbatim NTSB analysis and probable cause from the NTSB dataset
Sources
NTSB record CEN15LA344
- Event ID
- 20150810X41844
- Case number
- CEN15LA344
- 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: fcc63b87f13fb2b9613acffcb3bd69013c719c90c7b6b6b1058b5ea51be58066; retrieved 2026-09-14T19:49:22.976Z.