GAA16LA199 · Buckeye Industries DREAM MACHINE
Buckeye Industries DREAM MACHINE · Accident: loss of control in flight during takeoff
From Culver, IN to Culver, IN
Event
- NTSB case
- GAA16LA199
- 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
Buckeye Industries DREAM MACHINE
- Aircraft type
- Buckeye DREAM MACHINE
- Category
- Ultralight
- 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
- N2564A
- Operator
- Michael D. Wood · private individual
- Onboard fatalities
- Unknown
- Route
- From Culver, INTo Culver, IN
- Aircraft age
- About 15 years (built 2001)
- 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
- 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 › Task performance
Approximate · Coordinates as recorded by the NTSB; no uncertainty radius is established.
NTSB narrative
The noncertificated pilot was conducting a local personal flight in the powered-parachute, which he had purchased about 3 days before the accident flight. The pilot reported that, during his second attempt to take off from a grass field, he tried to avoid a tree by using the right rudder pedal, but the powered-parachute drifted left and impacted the tree, which resulted in substantial damage to the envelope.
The pilot reported that there were no preimpact mechanical failures or malfunctions with the airframe or engine that would have precluded normal operation. He further reported that he did not hold any flight certificates and had not received any flight instruction in the powered-parachute before the accident flight nor that he aware that he was required to do so. It is likely that the noncertificated pilot did not fully understand how to operate the powered-parachute, which led to his failure attain a climb and the subsequent impact with a tree.
Probable cause
The noncertificated pilot’s failure to attain a climb in the powered-parachute and its subsequent impact with a tree.
Verbatim NTSB analysis and probable cause from the NTSB dataset
Sources
NTSB record GAA16LA199
- Event ID
- 20160425X55011
- Case number
- GAA16LA199
- 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: 3a7bcc42b44a2904421a9d42601d6d5a046a7f4a210917164096ca694aa2124c; retrieved 2026-09-16T03:19:45.431Z.