ERA24LA008 · Rotorsport UK Ltd MTOSPORT 2017
Rotorsport UK Ltd MTOSPORT 2017 · Accident: loss of control in flight during takeoff
From an unrecorded airport to Fredericksburg, VA
Event
- NTSB case
- ERA24LA008
- 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
- 0 · 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
Rotorsport UK Ltd MTOSPORT 2017
- Aircraft type
- Rotorsport Uk MTOSPORT 2017
- Category
- Gyroplane
- 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
- N975CD
- Operator
- Unknown
- Onboard fatalities
- Unknown
- Route
- From not recordedTo Fredericksburg, VA
- 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
- 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 › 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 had just purchased the new gyroplane. He completed two delivery flights with a flight instructor, receiving about 1 hour of dual instruction. The pilot said the gyroplane flew beautifully, and he decided to fly home that day. Before takeoff, the pilot checked the flight controls, which functioned normally. There were no birds in the area and the wind was calm. On takeoff, when the gyroplane was about 5 ft above the runway, it made an uncommanded 30° yaw to the right. The pilot said he tried to correct with full left rudder pedal, but there was no response. The pilot said his only option was to reject the takeoff. He reduced power, pushed the nose forward, then pulled the controls back in an attempt to make a soft landing. The pilot stated that the main rotor blades flapped, and the gyroplane rolled before it “dropped” vertically about 15–20 ft to the ground. After the gyroplane came to a stop, the pilot turned off the engine. The pilot did not know why the gyroplane yawed but recalled that the control stick stayed in his hand, and he felt no feedback in the rudder pedals. A postaccident examination of the gyroplane revealed no evidence of any preimpact mechanical malfunctions or failures that would have precluded normal operation.
Probable cause
The pilot’s failure to maintain control of the gyroplane on takeoff.
Verbatim NTSB analysis and probable cause from the NTSB dataset
Sources
NTSB record ERA24LA008
- Event ID
- 20231016193244
- Case number
- ERA24LA008
- 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: 6ba8668646524726334a5156fb640d1ba032d4ef73072de236d70352a55e387f; retrieved 2026-09-16T18:13:11.095Z.