CEN16LA031 · American Autogyro Sparrowhawk
American Autogyro Sparrowhawk · Accident: loss of engine power (partial) while maneuvering
From Ortner Airport (I64) to Ortner Airport (I64)
Event
- NTSB case
- CEN16LA031
- 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
American Autogyro Sparrowhawk
- Aircraft type
- American Autogyro SPARROWHAWK
- 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
- N80825
- Operator
- Unknown
- Onboard fatalities
- Unknown
- Route
- From Ortner Airport (I64), Wakeman, OHTo Ortner Airport (I64), Wakeman, OH
- Aircraft age
- About 9 years (built 2006)
- 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
- 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 engine power (partial)
- 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
- Not determined › Not determined
Approximate · Coordinates as recorded by the NTSB; no uncertainty radius is established.
NTSB narrative
The private pilot was conducting a local personal flight. The pilot reported that, during takeoff, he maintained "cyclic balance" until the gyrocopter lifted off at 65 mph. Subsequently, the red alarm light, which was designed to illuminate if the exhaust gas temperature or cylinder head temperature was exceeded, illuminated. The pilot scanned his instrument panel but noted nothing else anomalous. The gyrocopter started to descend, and the pilot was unable to maintain altitude or climb. The pilot maneuvered the gyrocopter to avoid obstacles and trees, and during the forced landing to a field, it rolled left.
An examination of the engine, airframe, and systems revealed no anomalies that would have precluded normal operation. The investigation could not determine why the light illuminated or the gyrocopter's performance degraded.
Probable cause
A loss of engine power/performance for reasons that could not be determined because a postaccident examination of the airframe and engine did not reveal any anomalies that would have precluded normal operation.
Verbatim NTSB analysis and probable cause from the NTSB dataset
Sources
NTSB record CEN16LA031
- Event ID
- 20151105X63757
- Case number
- CEN16LA031
- 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: 150e8e340b0618ee0fc308b49707993dbf0750dc1172ae2cc6b6eb4eded6d166; retrieved 2026-09-16T02:57:14.652Z.