ERA19LA286 · Solo Wings WINDLASS
Solo Wings WINDLASS · Accident: loss of control in flight while maneuvering
From Pratermill Flight Park Airport (GA72) to Pratermill Flight Park Airport (GA72)
Event
- NTSB case
- ERA19LA286
- 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
- 0
- 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
Solo Wings WINDLASS
- Aircraft type
- Solo Wings WINDLASS
- 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 Pratermill Flight Park Airport (GA72), Dalton, GATo Pratermill Flight Park Airport (GA72), Dalton, GA
- Aircraft age
- About 21 years (built 1998)
- 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
- 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 › Action/decision
Approximate · Coordinates from the NTSB case API, which marks them as estimated or does not say; no uncertainty radius is established.
NTSB narrative
The airline transport pilot departed in the weight-shift control aircraft and climbed to just above tree height before entering a turn to the crosswind leg of the traffic pattern. Witnesses reported that the aircraft appeared to stall in the turn before making an uncontrolled, turning descent toward the ground. Although the pilot had received about 13 hours of instruction in weight-shift control aircraft, the accident flight was his first flight in the accident aircraft, and he did not have an endorsement for solo operation of a weight-shift control aircraft. Examination of the wreckage did not reveal any preimpact mechanical malfunctions. It is likely that the pilot failed to maintain airspeed during the turn, which resulted in an exceedance of the aircraft's critical angle of attack and an aerodynamic stall.
Probable cause
The pilot's exceedance of the aircraft's critical angle of attack during a turn shortly after takeoff, which resulted in an aerodynamic stall and subsequent impact with terrain. Contributing was the pilot's lack of experience in the accident aircraft.
Verbatim NTSB analysis and probable cause from the NTSB dataset
Sources
NTSB record ERA19LA286
- Event ID
- 20190928X02511
- Case number
- ERA19LA286
- 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: 728b5e50c5ee633306508de11bd60dc3b3bebdcba3afae14aaae2ea8b703978b; retrieved 2026-09-15T07:06:07.629Z.