CEN25LA172 · Golden Circle Air T-Bird I
Golden Circle Air T-Bird I · Accident: loss of control in flight on approach
From Husband Field (39IA) to Husband Field (39IA)
Event
- NTSB case
- CEN25LA172
- 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
- Event fatalities
- Unknown
- 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
Golden Circle Air T-Bird I
- Aircraft type
- Golden Circle Air T-BIRD
- 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
- N7192M
- Operator
- Unknown
- Onboard fatalities
- Unknown
- Route
- From Husband Field (39IA), Dallas Center, IATo Husband Field (39IA), Dallas Center, IA
- Aircraft age
- About 31 years (built 1994)
- 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
- Approach · VFR pattern final
- 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
- Environmental issues › Conditions/weather/phenomena
- 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 his first flight after he purchased and reassembled the light sport airplane. He intended to fly to a nearby grass airstrip to practice touch-and-go landings. He reported that the wind was calm during the takeoff and cruise portions of the flight. During final approach to the intended airstrip, about 30 ft above the ground and 200 ft short of the airstrip, a wind gust from the right caused the airplane to roll left. The pilot increased engine power and attempted to level the airplane’s wings, but the left wing impacted the ground and the airplane spun to stop short of the runway. The airplane’s aluminum tube fuselage structure and left wing sustained substantial damage during the ground impact. The pilot reported that there were no preimpact mechanical malfunctions or failures that would have precluded normal operation of the light sport airplane. Based on the reported wind direction and speed at an airport located about 11 nautical miles from the accident site, there was likely a direct right crosswind of about 8 knots while the airplane was on final approach to the airstrip.
Probable cause
The pilot’s failure to maintain adequate roll control of the light sport airplane while on final approach to the airstrip with a crosswind.
Verbatim NTSB analysis and probable cause from the NTSB dataset
Sources
NTSB record CEN25LA172
- Event ID
- 20250506200121
- Case number
- CEN25LA172
- 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 2025-05-05.
- API snapshot SHA-256: a2b14b958f84b567bfbbbb7edc9905271a58df4fa9cc640ed77e2ba1a2a0a6aa; retrieved 2026-09-16T19:52:14.621Z.