WPR19FA143 · Top Dog TopDog Ultralight
Top Dog TopDog Ultralight · Accident: loss of control in flight while maneuvering
From Hobby Field (77S) to Hobby Field (77S)
Event
- NTSB case
- WPR19FA143
- 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
- 1 · 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
Top Dog TopDog Ultralight
- Aircraft type
- Top Dog TOPDOG ULTRALIGHT
- 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
- UNREG
- Operator
- Unknown
- Onboard fatalities
- Unknown
- Route
- From Hobby Field (77S), Creswell, ORTo Hobby Field (77S), Creswell, OR
- Aircraft age
- Not recorded
- 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
- Maneuvering · low-altitude flying
- 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 › Experience/knowledge
- Personnel issues › Physical
- 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 non-certificated pilot departed in his unregistered experimental weight-shift-control light-sport aircraft. While approaching the runway to land, the aircraft entered a steep, descending left turn, the wing impacted a tree, and the aircraft subsequently impacted terrain in a near-vertical attitude. The pilot had no flight training or experience with weight-shift-control aircraft.
Examination of the flight controls and engine revealed no mechanical malfunctions or failures that would have precluded normal flight.
Toxicology of the pilot revealed the presence of methamphetamine, with blood levels consistent with recent, recreational use. It is likely that the pilot was significantly impaired by the effects of the drug and that this contributed to the loss of control.
Probable cause
The non-certificated pilot's loss of control while maneuvering. Contributing to the accident was his lack of training in the aircraft and his impairment from illicit drugs.
Verbatim NTSB analysis and probable cause from the NTSB dataset
Sources
NTSB record WPR19FA143
- Event ID
- 20190512X00615
- Case number
- WPR19FA143
- 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, coordinates, cause areas. Values present in the bulk record are kept.
- The date is the local date; the NTSB stores the UTC date 2019-05-12.
- API snapshot SHA-256: 89591e005fd8a135935355cf0e5240a7044fae03d3d237082a6dd6a1c24b17a5; retrieved 2026-09-15T06:57:58.027Z.