CEN21LA008 · Stephens William E Quicksilver MXL-2 Sp
Stephens William E Quicksilver MXL-2 Sp · Accident: loss of control in flight while maneuvering
Event
- NTSB case
- CEN21LA008
- 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
- 2 · 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
Stephens William E Quicksilver MXL-2 Sp
- Aircraft type
- Stephens William QUICKSILVER MXL-2 SP
- 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
- N2942A
- Operator
- Unknown
- Onboard fatalities
- Unknown
- Route
- From not recordedTo not recorded
- Aircraft age
- About 27 years (built 1993)
- 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 · aerobatics
- 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 sport pilot and pilot-rated passenger were conducting a local flight in the light sport airplane, which was not approved for aerobatic flight. A witness near the accident site saw the airplane exit a loop then spiral toward the ground. The airplane impacted the ground on a southwesterly heading and came to rest about 100 ft from the initial impact point. The flight controls were intact and there were no mechanical malfunctions or anomalies with the airplane that would have precluded normal operation.
Toxicological testing detected memantine in specimens from the pilot, which is used to treat dementia. The pilot’s presumed underlying dementia could have influenced some of his decision-making but without more information about the status of his disease, its effect on the safety of his flying could not be determined. Specimens from the pilot-rated passenger detected diphenhydramine, THC, and its metabolites; however, the low levels of each substance were unlikely to have caused impairing effects. Overall, it is unlikely the pilot’s presumed dementia, or the pilot-rated passenger’s use of multiple substances contributed to the circumstances of this accident.
The circumstances of the accident are consistent with the pilot’s decision to perform aerobatic maneuvers in an airplane not approved for aerobatic flight, during which he exceeded the airplane’s critical angle of attack, resulting in an aerodynamic stall/spin and loss of control.
Probable cause
The pilot’s exceedance of the airplane’s critical angle of attack during an aerobatic maneuver, which resulted in an aerodynamic stall and spin and loss of control. Contributing to the accident was the pilot’s decision to perform aerobatic maneuvers in an airplane that was not approved to do so.
Verbatim NTSB analysis and probable cause from the NTSB dataset
Sources
NTSB record CEN21LA008
- Event ID
- 20201006102099
- Case number
- CEN21LA008
- 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, cause areas. 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: 18ed8e257d32f87270e42fbaa720f5bb7cc945d0ac5433458ab0596a4770a425; retrieved 2026-09-15T07:20:58.915Z.