WPR18LA142 · Kolb FIRESTAR II
Kolb FIRESTAR II · Accident: aerodynamic stall/spin en route
From OR1 · Atmore, AL to OR1 · Atmore, AL
Event
- NTSB case
- WPR18LA142
- 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
Kolb FIRESTAR II
- Aircraft type
- Kolb FIRESTAR
- Category
- Airplane
- 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
- N9216E
- Operator
- Unknown
- Onboard fatalities
- Unknown
- Route
- From OR1 · Atmore, ALTo OR1 · Atmore, AL
- Aircraft age
- About 1 year (built 2017)
- 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
- En route · cruise
- 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
- Aerodynamic stall/spin
- 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 from the NTSB case API, which marks them as estimated or does not say; no uncertainty radius is established.
NTSB narrative
The noncertificated pilot had purchased the experimental amateur-built airplane about 1 year before the accident and had accrued about 4 hours of experience in the airplane make and model. His wife reported that the accident flight was his first actual flight in the airplane, as his previous activities had been limited to taxiing and a maneuver in which the airplane intentionally became momentarily airborne while traveling down the runway.
An externally mounted onboard video camera recorded the pilot's entire 13-minute personal flight and showed that after takeoff, the airplane climbed to an altitude of about 500 to 750 ft above ground level. About 6 minutes after takeoff, the airplane began maneuvers consistent with an aerodynamic stall and spin. The airplane first banked and turned sharply right, the nose pitched down, and then the airplane banked and turned sharply left, descending rapidly during this sequence. Within a few seconds, the airplane struck a tree and then impacted the ground; the fuselage, tail boom, and wings sustained substantial damage.
Examination of the airplane did not reveal any preimpact mechanical malfunctions or failures that would have precluded normal operation.
The pilot indicated that his total flight time was about 36 hours, most of which were accrued about 20 years before the accident. The pilot's limited overall flight experience, combined with his lack of recent flight training or any instruction in the accident airplane make and model, likely prevented him from recognizing, avoiding, and recovering from an aerodynamic stall.
Probable cause
The noncertificated pilot's failure to maintain airplane control, which resulted in an aerodynamic stall. Contributing to the accident was the pilot's lack of flight experience and qualification.
Verbatim NTSB analysis and probable cause from the NTSB dataset
Sources
NTSB record WPR18LA142
- Event ID
- 20180511X65132
- Case number
- WPR18LA142
- 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: 94424340da41d6889fa9376b8301612c13d766859c97e7feefda5b9208861f5d; retrieved 2026-09-16T07:09:21.679Z.