WPR22FA311 · Smyth Sidewinder TD
Smyth Sidewinder TD · Accident: loss of control in flight during takeoff
From an unrecorded airport to Waldron Municipal Airport (M27)
Event
- NTSB case
- WPR22FA311
- 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
Smyth Sidewinder TD
- Aircraft type
- Smyth Sidewinder TD
- 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
- N60JV
- Operator
- Unknown
- Onboard fatalities
- Unknown
- Route
- From not recordedTo Waldron Municipal Airport (M27), Waldron, AR
- Aircraft age
- About 24 years (built 1998)
- 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
- Takeoff
- 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 › Experience/knowledge
- Personnel issues › Task performance
Approximate · Coordinates as recorded by the NTSB; no uncertainty radius is established.
NTSB narrative
The pilot purchased the experimental, amateur-built airplane on the morning of the accident. He was planning to fly the airplane to his home airport in a different state. That morning, the previous owner and the pilot reviewed the maintenance logbooks, airplane characteristics, checklists, and examined the airframe and engine. After a thorough review, they started the engine and completed a run-up. The previous owner offered to stay in the airplane so the pilot could practice taking off and landing. The pilot declined and the previous owner exited the airplane.
Witnesses observed the airplane align with the runway centerline and begin to accelerate. The pilot appeared to be making a 3-point takeoff with all the landing gear remaining on the runway surface. The airplane then became airborne at a slow speed and climbed to about 50-75 feet above ground level (agl). The airplane assumed a nose-high attitude and stalled as the left wing dropped down and collided with terrain adjacent to the runway; the airplane erupted into flames.
The 87-year-old pilot had over 20,000 hours of total flight experience but had never flown the accident airplane.
Probable cause
The pilot’s inexperience with the airplane and inadequate takeoff procedures, which led to exceedance of the airplane’s critical angle of attack and an aerodynamic stall during takeoff.
Verbatim NTSB analysis and probable cause from the NTSB dataset
Sources
NTSB record WPR22FA311
- Event ID
- 20220820105771
- Case number
- WPR22FA311
- 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: 5541dd93325a1bcc17fd9a79af46f4414069cda1e6df21d7974f40bf488a2010; retrieved 2026-09-15T07:49:31.497Z.