CEN15LA350 · JAL R Dennis TRIXY PRINCESS
JAL R Dennis TRIXY PRINCESS · Accident: collision during takeoff/landing during initial climb
From Midland Airpark (MDD) to Midland Airpark (MDD)
Event
- NTSB case
- CEN15LA350
- 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
JAL R Dennis TRIXY PRINCESS
- Aircraft type
- Jal R Dennis TRIXY PRINCESS
- 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
- N743SS
- Operator
- Unknown
- Onboard fatalities
- Unknown
- Route
- From Midland Airpark (MDD), Midland, TXTo Midland Airpark (MDD), Midland, TX
- Aircraft age
- About 1 year (built 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
- Initial climb
- 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
- Collision during takeoff/landing
- 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 sport pilot was operating the gyroplane near its maximum gross weight on a hot day. He taxied the gyroplane to a position north of the runway intersection and then performed a normal takeoff to the south. During the initial climb, the gyroplane began to lose airspeed. The pilot tried to regain airspeed by lowering the nose, but the airspeed continued to decrease. The pilot conducted a forced landing in a park, during which the gyroplane impacted the ground hard and rolled over on its right side.
Examination of the gyroplane, the engine, and other systems revealed no evidence of any preimpact anomalies that would have precluded normal operation. The density altitude was calculated to be 5,850 ft, which would have degraded the gyroplane's climb rate by 75 percent. It is likely the pilot failed to adequately prepare for the flight and did not account for the effects of high density-altitude conditions, high gross weight, and reduced engine performance and that these factors degraded the gyroplane's climb performance such that the pilot was unable to maintain a positive climb rate.
Probable cause
The pilot's inadequate preflight planning during which he failed to account for the high-density altitude conditions and high gross weight, which degraded the gyroplane's climb performance and resulted in a hard landing.
Verbatim NTSB analysis and probable cause from the NTSB dataset
Sources
NTSB record CEN15LA350
- Event ID
- 20150812X02331
- Case number
- CEN15LA350
- 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: ad38b241ccbb7f0b40dcb73e5c0fc3c088623e539214dd6287f51d74deeb40f6; retrieved 2026-09-16T02:39:27.429Z.