GAA18CA499 · Evolution Trikes REVO
Pacific Blue Air Evolution Trikes REVO · Accident: loss of control in flight during landing
From Jack Northrop Field Hawthorne Municipal Airport (HHR) to Jack Northrop Field Hawthorne Municipal Airport (HHR)
Event
- NTSB case
- GAA18CA499
- 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
Evolution Trikes REVO
- Aircraft type
- Evolution Trikes REVO
- 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
- N145PT
- Operator
- Pacific Blue Air
- Onboard fatalities
- Unknown
- Route
- From Jack Northrop Field Hawthorne Municipal Airport (HHR), Hawthorne, CATo Jack Northrop Field Hawthorne Municipal Airport (HHR), Hawthorne, CA
- Aircraft age
- About 8 years (built 2010)
- 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 · flare/touchdown
- 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
- 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 weight-shift-controlled aircraft reported that, during a demonstration flight, during the landing flare, he observed the wind sock shift 90°, and he felt a violent wind gust from the left that lifted the left wing. He attempted to lower the left wing, but the right wing impacted the ground, and the aircraft cartwheeled before coming to rest.
The flight instructor reported that, after the accident, an airport worker reported to him that he had been caught in a "dust devil."
The weight-shift-controlled aircraft sustained substantial damage to the left wing.
The flight instructor reported that there were no preaccident mechanical failures or malfunctions with the weight-shift-controlled aircraft that would have precluded normal operation.
The automated weather observation station located on the airport reported that, about 13 minutes after the accident, the wind was from 230° at 8 knots. The weight-shift-controlled aircraft landed on runway 25.
Probable cause
The flight instructor’s failure to maintain lateral control of the weight-shift-controlled aircraft during the landing flare.
Verbatim NTSB analysis and probable cause from the NTSB dataset
Sources
NTSB record GAA18CA499
- Event ID
- 20180821X60520
- Case number
- GAA18CA499
- 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: dff9a92efcd6b6dac204e2822141df584d3a86b837b8d9c5756b9aa62555b00e; retrieved 2026-09-16T08:07:55.572Z.