WPR23FA138 · Aerotrike Cobra
Aerotrike Cobra · Accident: loss of control in flight while maneuvering
Narrative check · The NTSB narrative appears to contradict this record's date. Values are shown as recorded, not corrected; compare with the narrative.
Event
- NTSB case
- WPR23FA138
- 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
- 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
Aerotrike Cobra
- Aircraft type
- Aerotrike COBRA
- 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 not recordedTo not recorded
- Aircraft age
- About 22 years (built 2001)
- 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
- Destroyed
Cause areas
- Aircraft › Aircraft oper/perf/capability
- Personnel issues › Action/decision
- Personnel issues › Task performance
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 was conducting a personal flight in the weight-shift-control aircraft. A friend of the pilot, who was flying in the area in his powered parachute, witnessed the accident aircraft flying in level flight toward his position. When he looked back, the aircraft was turning toward him, and shortly thereafter, he saw the aircraft in a flat spin that continued until it impacted the ground. Examination of the wreckage at the accident site revealed that the parachute likely deployed from its containment bag as a result of ground impact forces. The parachute T-handle remained in the handle mount and the safety pin was found adjacent to the pin hole area. The safety pin engagement surface area exhibited less sooting residue than the head of the pin, consistent with it being installed in the T-handle mount at the time of the accident. A postaccident examination of the airframe and engine revealed no evidence of mechanical malfunctions or failures that would have precluded normal operation. Based on the available information, it is likely that the pilot exceeded the aircraft’s critical angle of attack while maneuvering, resulting in an aerodynamic stall/spin and loss of control.
Probable cause
The pilot’s exceedance of the aircraft’s critical angle of attack, which resulted in an aerodynamic stall.
Verbatim NTSB analysis and probable cause from the NTSB dataset
Sources
NTSB record WPR23FA138
- Event ID
- 20230323106945
- Case number
- WPR23FA138
- 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: 38fbeda5d696dd9f9499ec8d73c1f195fd26a94916bc22eba15fb973fda28370; retrieved 2026-09-15T07:57:55.686Z.