GAA17CA092 · Pitcairn PA 18
Pitcairn PA 18 · Accident: dynamic rollover during landing
From Northeast Philadelphia Airport (PNE) to Northeast Philadelphia Airport (PNE)
Event
- NTSB case
- GAA17CA092
- 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
Pitcairn PA 18
- Aircraft type
- Pitcairn PA-18
- 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
- N12680
- Operator
- Unknown
- Onboard fatalities
- Unknown
- Route
- From Northeast Philadelphia Airport (PNE), Philadelphia, PATo Northeast Philadelphia Airport (PNE), Philadelphia, PA
- Aircraft age
- About 84 years (built 1932)
- 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 · landing roll
- 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
- Dynamic rollover
- 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 from the NTSB case API, which marks them as estimated or does not say; no uncertainty radius is established.
NTSB narrative
According to the pilot of the tailwheel-equipped gyroplane, he landed on the right main landing gear. The gyroplane began rolling to the right, but the gyroplane's heading was aligned to the left of the runway heading and continued in a left direction of travel. He attempted to correct the gyroplane's right roll by moving the control stick to the left; however, the aileron movement did not subside the roll. He reported that in hindsight, opening the throttle and applying right rudder may have subsided the roll, "but my mental preparedness was biased to preventing a ground loop, not a dynamic rollover." The gyroplane continued to roll right and impacted the ground. The gyroplane came to rest on the runway and sustained substantial damage to the main rotor system, right wing, and the empennage.
The pilot reported that his lack of experience in the gyroplane model contributed to the accident because the critical angle was exceeded in this gyroplane more quickly than in other gyroplanes that he was accustomed to flying.
The pilot reported that there were no preaccident mechanical malfunctions or failures with the gyroplane that would have precluded normal operation.
Probable cause
The pilot’s failure to correct the gyroplane’s right roll during the landing, which resulted in the exceedance of its critical angle and a subsequent roll-over. Contributing to the accident were the pilot’s focus on preventing a potential ground loop instead of a roll-over and his lack of experience in the gyroplane model.
Verbatim NTSB analysis and probable cause from the NTSB dataset
Sources
NTSB record GAA17CA092
- Event ID
- 20161212X52458
- Case number
- GAA17CA092
- 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: 6495c55a9b05919742d1f10c255b99aa857fc7dc4f87a0bb46ce89ead41586f7; retrieved 2026-09-16T04:53:27.816Z.