WPR21FA265 · North Wing Mustang 3
North Wing Mustang 3 · Accident: loss of control in flight while maneuvering
From Sunriver Airport (S21) to an unrecorded destination
Event
- NTSB case
- WPR21FA265
- 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
- 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
North Wing Mustang 3
- Aircraft type
- North Wing MUSTANG
- 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 Sunriver Airport (S21), Albany, ORTo not recorded
- Aircraft age
- About 6 years (built 2015)
- 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
- Aircraft › Aircraft oper/perf/capability
Approximate · Coordinates from the NTSB case API, which marks them as estimated or does not say; no uncertainty radius is established.
NTSB narrative
After departure, the pilot of the weight-shift-control trike flew for about 3.3 miles. When the trike was at an altitude of about 230 ft above the ground, it banked to the left in an almost 90° turn. The left wing continued to drop down, and the aircraft descended toward the ground as the turn tightened. The aircraft impacted the ground in a nose-low attitude. Postaccident examination of the aircraft, including the flight controls, structure, and engine, revealed no evidence of any mechanical anomalies. The engine speed was within its normal range while the aircraft was banked. According to the manufacturer, the aircraft’s limitations included not exceeding bank angles of 60° and pitch angles of 30°. The manufacturer’s manual stated that flying the aircraft with a bank angle exceeding 60° “should never be attempted under any circumstance.” The pilot flew the aircraft in a manner that was not consistent with the manufacturer’s guidance and lost control of the aircraft during the low-level left turn due to the excessive bank angle.
Probable cause
The noncertificated pilot’s loss of aircraft control after a low-level turn with a bank angle that exceeded the manufacturer’s operating limitations.
Verbatim NTSB analysis and probable cause from the NTSB dataset
Sources
NTSB record WPR21FA265
- Event ID
- 20210710103450
- Case number
- WPR21FA265
- 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: local date, investigation status, coordinates, cause areas. Values present in the bulk record are kept.
- The date is the local date; the NTSB stores the UTC date 2021-07-10.
- API snapshot SHA-256: 2b8fc1b27efb5828704d6727c20bd6831a499c517ac2138b4cdd5291f3b2b59a; retrieved 2026-09-15T07:31:14.209Z.