CEN16LA266 · Toevs Titanium Explorer
Toevs Titanium Explorer · Accident: loss of control in flight while maneuvering
From Newton City-County Airport (KEWK) to Newton City-County Airport (KEWK)
Event
- NTSB case
- CEN16LA266
- 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
Toevs Titanium Explorer
- Aircraft type
- Toevs TITANIUM EXPLORER
- 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
- N556XT
- Operator
- Unknown
- Onboard fatalities
- Unknown
- Route
- From Newton City-County Airport (KEWK), Newton, KSTo Newton City-County Airport (KEWK), Newton, KS
- Aircraft age
- About 1 year (built 2015)
- 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 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
- Destroyed
Cause areas
- Not determined › Not determined
- Personnel issues › Task performance
Approximate · Coordinates as recorded by the NTSB; no uncertainty radius is established.
NTSB narrative
The sport pilot was conducting a local flight in the gyroplane that he and his wife had built. Witnesses saw the gyroplane start a turn, the nose of the gyroplane pitch up, and then the gyroplane descend and impact the ground. A postimpact fire ensued and destroyed the gyroplane. A postaccident examination of the airframe and engine did not reveal any mechanical anomalies that would have precluded normal operation; however, the examination was limited by fragmentation due to impact damage and heat damage due to the postimpact fire.
The pilot had an undiagnosed adrenal tumor and was being treated for hypertension, depression, and chronic pain. However, it is unlikely that any of these conditions or treatments contributed to the abrupt loss of control in this accident.
The reason for the sudden pitch up and then descent and impact with terrain could not be determined during the investigation.
Probable cause
The loss of aircraft control for reasons that could not be determined because postaccident examination did not reveal any anomalies that would have precluded normal operation.
Verbatim NTSB analysis and probable cause from the NTSB dataset
Sources
NTSB record CEN16LA266
- Event ID
- 20160716X01657
- Case number
- CEN16LA266
- 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: local date, investigation status. Values present in the bulk record are kept.
- The date is the local date; the NTSB stores the UTC date 2016-07-16.
- API snapshot SHA-256: 2a813a83a9804694daa14987e730a8c7548d67c5ff47d47a380f019bee68fbe1; retrieved 2026-09-14T21:54:20.887Z.