CEN26LA067 · Mark O Treidel American Ranger AR-1
Mark O Treidel American Ranger AR-1 · Accident during takeoff
Event
- NTSB case
- CEN26LA067
- 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
Mark O Treidel American Ranger AR-1
- Aircraft type
- Mark O Treidel AMERICAN RANGER AR-1
- 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
- N529MW
- Operator
- Unknown
- Onboard fatalities
- Unknown
- Route
- From not recordedTo not recorded
- Aircraft age
- About 8 years (built 2017)
- 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
- Miscellaneous/other
- 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
Approximate · Coordinates as recorded by the NTSB; no uncertainty radius is established.
NTSB narrative
The pilot stated that it was a very windy day with winds above 20 mph and gusts to 30 mph when he attempted a takeoff in his gyroplane. He stated that during the takeoff roll with the pre-rotor engaged to 130 to140 RPM, he gently eased back on the cyclic and a gust of wind caught the rotors. He felt the rotor flap and then a bump. He immediately arrested the rotor flap and then continued the takeoff roll. When the gyroplane became airborne, he realized there was less rudder authority and returned to land at the departure airport without further incident. After landing, the pilot noticed that rudder had been damaged due to a rotor strike, which likely occurred when the rotor flapped during takeoff, resulting in substantial damage to the rudder. The pilot stated that he should have had the rotors pre-rotated to 160 RPM or greater prior to pulling back on the cyclic, and there were no preaccident mechanical malfunctions or failures of the gyroplane that would have precluded normal operation.
Probable cause
The pilot’s failure to attain rotor RPM and maintain proper rotor disc angle during takeoff which resulted in a rotor strike with the rudder.
Verbatim NTSB analysis and probable cause from the NTSB dataset
Sources
NTSB record CEN26LA067
- Event ID
- 20251222202193
- Case number
- CEN26LA067
- 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: 9fc3b757b8a4783954b423f261388d9d95f3727bfd85ed847ab8f78b44a632ae; retrieved 2026-09-16T20:37:19.631Z.