CEN21FA177 · Magnus Aircraft LLC FUSION 212
Magnus Aircraft LLC FUSION 212 · Accident: loss of control in flight while maneuvering
From Colorado Air and Space Port (CFO) to Colorado Air and Space Port (CFO)
Event
- NTSB case
- CEN21FA177
- 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
Magnus Aircraft LLC FUSION 212
- Aircraft type
- Magnus FUSION 212
- 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
- N434MA
- Operator
- Unknown
- Onboard fatalities
- Unknown
- Route
- From Colorado Air and Space Port (CFO), Denver, COTo Colorado Air and Space Port (CFO), Denver, CO
- Aircraft age
- About 5 years (built 2016)
- 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
- 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 pilot flew the light sport airplane toward a mountainous canyon while at low altitude. When the pilot attempted to turn away from rising terrain in the canyon, the airplane decelerated toward stall speed and impacted the ground in a nose-low attitude that was consistent with a stalled condition. The airplane sustained substantial damage to both wings, empennage, and fuselage.
Density altitude at the accident site was 11,365 ft.
Post-accident examination of the airplane, as well as downloaded flight data, showed no evidence of pre-impact mechanical malfunctions. The pilot started flying about 3 years before the accident and was involved in 2 previous accidents and 4 pilot deviations that involved poor decision making and/or situational awareness.
Toxicology testing detected the stimulant amphetamine, the antidepressants bupropion and citalopram, and the chronic nerve pain medication gabapentin. Although these medications can negatively affect psychomotor performance, based on the pilot’s flying history and the circumstances of the accident, it is unlikely they were factors in the accident.
The circumstances of the accident are consistent with the pilot’s decision to fly toward a canyon at low altitude in high density altitude conditions, and his exceedance of the airplane’s critical angle of attack while maneuvering to avoid terrain, which resulted in an aerodynamic stall and loss of airplane control.
Probable cause
The pilot’s decision to fly at low altitude toward a mountainous canyon, and his exceedance of the airplane’s critical angle of attack while maneuvering to avoid rising terrain, which resulted in an aerodynamic stall and loss of airplane control.
Verbatim NTSB analysis and probable cause from the NTSB dataset
Sources
NTSB record CEN21FA177
- Event ID
- 20210404102862
- Case number
- CEN21FA177
- 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, 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: 0d6f8dc54938b2bd57873a49bf390f06beb6297e7b816d51167d70bcd76a41b6; retrieved 2026-09-15T07:26:34.015Z.