CEN24LA006 · Gyro Technic GT-VX2
Gyro Technic GT-VX2 · Accident: low altitude operation/event while maneuvering
From Le Sueur Municipal Airport (12Y) to Mankato Regional Airport (MKT)
Event
- NTSB case
- CEN24LA006
- 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
Gyro Technic GT-VX2
- Aircraft type
- Gyro Technic GT-VX2
- Category
- Helicopter
- 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
- N557LJ
- Operator
- Unknown
- Onboard fatalities
- Unknown
- Route
- From Le Sueur Municipal Airport (12Y), Le Sueur, MNTo Mankato Regional Airport (MKT), Mankato, MN
- Aircraft age
- Built the same year (2023)
- 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
- Low altitude operation/event
- Also codedOther events the NTSB coded in the sequence, such as a wire strike after a loss of power. Flight Findings uses them for its kinds of event. Glossary
- Wire
- 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 › Psychological
Approximate · Coordinates as recorded by the NTSB; no uncertainty radius is established.
NTSB narrative
The pilot was conducting a personal flight as part of a flight of two gyroplanes. Bothpilots were flying their gyroplanes at low level through a river valley when the accident occurred. As they approached a bridge, the second pilot climbed his gyroplane; however, the accident pilot remained at a lower altitude after passing over the bridge and subsequently impacted power lines. The second pilot noticed “flashing” below him and observed the accident gyroplane splash into the river. The gyroplane sustained substantial damage and the pilot was fatally injured. A witness on the ground observed the gyroplane fly directly into the power lines. Postaccident examination of the airframe and engine revealed no anomalies that would have precluded normal operation.
Probable cause
The pilot's failure to maintain clearance from power lines during low-level maneuvering through a river valley.
Verbatim NTSB analysis and probable cause from the NTSB dataset
Sources
NTSB record CEN24LA006
- Event ID
- 20231010193213
- Case number
- CEN24LA006
- 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: 81969e5cf8a888deaa0ba27265b5ae6080af285fb7141010d2f9ac02fbcaf179; retrieved 2026-09-15T08:06:43.989Z.