GAA17CA292 · Airtime Aircraft Inc CYGNET
Airtime Aircraft Inc CYGNET · Accident: loss of control on ground during takeoff
From Casa Grande Municipal Airport (CGZ) to Casa Grande Municipal Airport (CGZ)
Event
- NTSB case
- GAA17CA292
- 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
Airtime Aircraft Inc CYGNET
- Aircraft type
- Airtime CYGNET
- 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
- N168AT
- Operator
- Unknown
- Onboard fatalities
- Unknown
- Route
- From Casa Grande Municipal Airport (CGZ), Casa Grande, AZTo Casa Grande Municipal Airport (CGZ), Casa Grande, AZ
- Aircraft age
- About 1 year (built 2016)
- 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 on ground
- 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 flight instructor in the amphibious, float-equipped, weight-shift-controlled trike reported that he was demonstrating multiple touch-and-go landings for the student pilot, who was in the front seat of the tandem-seat trike. He added that, during the final approach, the wind was "light and variable," and the landing was "smooth and stable." He further added that, as power was applied to takeoff, a "gust of wind and dust came in from our left and got under the wing." Subsequently, the trike veered off the runway to the right and rolled over.
The wing and fuselage sustained substantial damage.
The flight instructor reported that there were no preaccident mechanical malfunctions or failures with the trike that would have precluded normal operation.
An automated weather observation station at the accident airport recorded that, about the time of the accident, the wind was from 330° at 9 knots. The flight instructor reported the takeoff was from runway 5.
Probable cause
The flight instructor's failure to maintain directional control during takeoff in gusting crosswind conditions.
Verbatim NTSB analysis and probable cause from the NTSB dataset
Sources
NTSB record GAA17CA292
- Event ID
- 20170520X20724
- Case number
- GAA17CA292
- 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 2017-05-21.
- API snapshot SHA-256: 8a04e9552f7f6627b20215bd56757596c547f15a73ad6b9815d4d7af0a55938e; retrieved 2026-09-16T05:18:05.414Z.