CEN16LA245 · Evolution Aircraft Inc Revo
Evolution Aircraft Inc Revo · Accident: loss of control in flight during landing
From Grand Haven Memorial Airpark (3GM) to Park Township Airport (HLM)
Event
- NTSB case
- CEN16LA245
- 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
Evolution Aircraft Inc Revo
- Aircraft type
- Evolution REVO
- Category
- Weight-Shift
- 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
- N20EV
- Operator
- Unknown
- Onboard fatalities
- Unknown
- Route
- From Grand Haven Memorial Airpark (3GM), Grand Haven, MITo Park Township Airport (HLM), Holland, MI
- Aircraft age
- About 2 years (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
- Landing · flare/touchdown
- 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 › Action/decision
- Personnel issues › Task performance
Approximate · Coordinates as recorded by the NTSB; no uncertainty radius is established.
NTSB narrative
The student pilot and flight instructor were returning to the airport to land following an instructional flight in the weight-shift aircraft. The flight instructor performed the approach and landing, and, upon touchdown, the engine power increased. The aircraft lifted off the runway, drifted toward the right side of the runway, began a mild oscillation, then impacted the ground.
Postaccident examination revealed no evidence of mechanical malfunctions or anomalies that would have precluded normal operation; the trim position was set to "fast." According to the aircraft operating instructions, when the aircraft is trimmed in the "fast" setting, the pilot would be required to apply more pressure on the controls in order to slow the aircraft down. The operating instructions indicated that the trim should be set to a "slow" position during landing.
It is likely that the flight instructor experienced greater than expected control forces and difficulty in slowing the aircraft during landing due to its improper trim setting. This subsequently led to his loss of control during landing.
Probable cause
The flight instructor's failure to maintain aircraft control during landing as a result of his failure to adjust the electric trim to the proper position for landing.
Verbatim NTSB analysis and probable cause from the NTSB dataset
Sources
NTSB record CEN16LA245
- Event ID
- 20160706X04332
- Case number
- CEN16LA245
- Dataset
- full-current
- Source SHA-256
- 5cf380f0061817c0331a6b2d8cc7e0ee3a79bea469a1001dc5c10e56f35f5ab3
Source notes (5)
- 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: 3ba7d86423de60434b453e21d12c0d7c4c82cd9bc4c43316dbe343a8ddf0fc0a; retrieved 2026-09-16T03:37:22.301Z.
- Corrected after a review of the NTSB narrative, which states these values explicitly: destination. Wrong city for the identifier; HLM is Tulip City Airport, Holland, MI, which is also the recorded accident location.