GAA18CA394 · Evektor Aerotechnik SPORTSTAR
Total Flight Aircraft Leasing Evektor Aerotechnik SPORTSTAR · Accident: aerodynamic stall/spin on approach
From Triangle North Executive Airport (LHZ) to Triangle North Executive Airport (LHZ)
Event
- NTSB case
- GAA18CA394
- 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
Evektor Aerotechnik SPORTSTAR
- Aircraft type
- Evektor SPORTSTAR
- 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
- N902HB
- Operator
- Total Flight Aircraft Leasing
- Onboard fatalities
- Unknown
- Route
- From Triangle North Executive Airport (LHZ), Louisburg, NCTo Triangle North Executive Airport (LHZ), Louisburg, NC
- Aircraft age
- About 12 years (built 2006)
- 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
- Approach · VFR pattern final
- 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 › Psychological
- Personnel issues › Task performance
Approximate · Coordinates as recorded by the NTSB; no uncertainty radius is established.
NTSB narrative
The solo student pilot reported that, after completing a touch-and-go landing without incident, during the takeoff, the airplane drifted left off the runway toward a wooded area. He attempted to slow and stop the airplane, but it struck a culvert, which "launched" the airplane back into the air. He then increased the engine power to full, pitched the nose up, flew the airplane back into the traffic pattern, and landed without further incident.
After taking time to gather himself, the student took off again, this time to conduct a basic navigation exercise in the local area, but he became disoriented and used the airplane's GPS to return to the departure airport. The student stated that he was distracted during the downwind leg due to the previous runway excursion and the navigation issues he experienced during the accident flight and allowed the airspeed to decrease, which resulted in the airplane stalling. While making the turn to base, the student overcorrected with left rudder, which resulted in the airplane entering a spin and subsequently colliding with trees.
The airplane sustained substantial damage to both wings.
The student reported that there were no preaccident mechanical failures or malfunctions with the airplane that would have precluded normal operation.
Probable cause
The student pilot's distraction due to a previous runway excursion and navigational issues during the accident flight and his failure to maintain adequate airspeed and his exceedance of the airplane’s critical angle of attack during the downwind leg, which resulted in an aerodynamic stall/spin.
Verbatim NTSB analysis and probable cause from the NTSB dataset
Sources
NTSB record GAA18CA394
- Event ID
- 20180705X71012
- Case number
- GAA18CA394
- 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. 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: 22764180bc62eda568d598391decf4c1be942e56a23aaac2bc5e0bd394e12656; retrieved 2026-09-16T07:44:54.421Z.