CEN20LA203 · Magni MAGNI M 16 Undesignat
Paul Salmon Aircraft Services Magni MAGNI M 16 Undesignat · Accident: loss of lift during initial climb
From Cape Girardeau Regional Airport (CGI) to Cape Girardeau Regional Airport (CGI)
Event
- NTSB case
- CEN20LA203
- 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
Magni MAGNI M 16 Undesignat
- Aircraft type
- Magni M-16
- Category
- Gyroplane
- 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
- N316MG
- Operator
- Paul Salmon Aircraft Services
- Onboard fatalities
- Unknown
- Route
- From Cape Girardeau Regional Airport (CGI), Cape Girardeau, MOTo Cape Girardeau Regional Airport (CGI), Cape Girardeau, MO
- Aircraft age
- About 14 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
- Initial climb
- 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 lift
- 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
No findings designated as a cause are recorded in the NTSB data yet.
Approximate · Coordinates as recorded by the NTSB; no uncertainty radius is established.
NTSB narrative
The student pilot was conducting touch-and-go takeoffs and landings in the gyroplane when the engine warning light illuminated while on the downwind leg. He dismissed the engine warning light for oil pressure when it extinguished while rolling down the runway and elected to takeoff again. He stated that he noticed a “weird smell” and that engine did not seem to be making power, so he landed again on the remaining runway; however, noting that the end of the runway was approaching, he then chose to take off again so that the gyroplane did not continue off the runway into the muddy grass. The pilot reported that, after takeoff, he “had no speed” and “fell behind the power curve,” and the gyroplane descended into the grass past the end of the runway. The wheels dug into the soft ground and the aircraft rolled onto its side, substantially damaging the rotor system, the airframe, and the tail assembly.
The pilot’s flight instructor, who witnessed the accident and was the owner of the gyroplane, stated that the pilot remained on the runway too long before taking off. He stated that the gyroplane became airborne with about 100 to 200 ft of runway remaining and that its nose was “too high” before it settled back to the ground past the end of the runway. The instructor reported that there were no preaccident mechanical anomalies with the gyroplane.
The engine was examined, and no anomalies were noted that would have precluded normal operation. The accident is consistent with the student pilot’s decision to take off with inadequate runway remaining, and his subsequent failure to attain proper airspeed, which resulted in the gyroplane’s descent into terrain.
Probable cause
The student pilot’s decision to take off with inadequate runway remaining, and his subsequent failure to attain proper airspeed, which resulted in the gyroplane’s descent into terrain.
Verbatim NTSB analysis and probable cause from the NTSB dataset
Sources
NTSB record CEN20LA203
- Event ID
- 20200529X00734
- Case number
- CEN20LA203
- 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: ea7ee71ebca9f1df95b5b0bd0790f70d915e895d9c7596248621920a7da5256f; retrieved 2026-09-16T11:42:03.358Z.