ERA21LA014 · Pipistrel Alpha Trainer
Piedmont Flight Training Pipistrel Alpha Trainer · Accident: loss of control in flight while maneuvering
From Smith Reynolds Airport (INT) to an unrecorded destination
Event
- NTSB case
- ERA21LA014
- 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
- Event fatalities
- Unknown
- 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
Pipistrel Alpha Trainer
- Aircraft type
- Pipistrel ALPHA TRAINER
- 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
- N227PF
- Operator
- Piedmont Flight Training
- Onboard fatalities
- Unknown
- Route
- From Smith Reynolds Airport (INT), Winston Salem, NCTo not recorded
- Aircraft age
- About 1 year (built 2019)
- 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
- Personnel issues › Task performance
Approximate · Coordinates as recorded by the NTSB; no uncertainty radius is established.
NTSB narrative
The pilot reported that the airplane was at 5,000 ft and an engine power setting of 5,000 rpm when he began to pitch and roll to practice a chandelle. At the start of the control inputs for the maneuver, he looked down at his kneeboard and personal electronic device and readjusted its position on his leg and around the control stick. The pilot advised that during this time, he may have released the backpressure on the control stick but continued the turn. While focused on the kneeboard he heard the engine rpm increase, then looked up and realized that the airplane had entered an unusual attitude. During this same time, he became disoriented and tried to correct visually, instead of by reference to the instruments. As such, he inadvertently increased the rate of descent and was unable to determine the airplane’s position as it rapidly gained airspeed. He then heard a “pop” sound and deployed the airplane’s ballistic recovery system (BRS). The BRS system’s parachute deployed successfully, and the airplane came to rest in trees without its left wing. The outboard section of the left wing was subsequently recovered; however, the inboard section was not found. The pilot reported that there were no preaccident mechanical malfunctions or failures with the airplane that would have precluded normal operation.
Probable cause
The pilot’s failure to maintain airplane control and improper recovery from an unusual attitude, which resulted in an in-flight breakup.
Verbatim NTSB analysis and probable cause from the NTSB dataset
Sources
NTSB record ERA21LA014
- Event ID
- 20201009102123
- Case number
- ERA21LA014
- 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: ebcd5c9d36303ba3989f75fefcf78c03d0eec76e864f3bda58b1a9f741208978; retrieved 2026-09-16T13:13:09.840Z.