CEN26LA081 · ELA ELA10
ELA ELA10 · Accident during takeoff
Event
- NTSB case
- CEN26LA081
- 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
ELA ELA10
- Aircraft type
- Ela ELA10
- 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
- N396S
- Operator
- Unknown
- Onboard fatalities
- Unknown
- Route
- From not recordedTo not recorded
- Aircraft age
- About 4 years (built 2021)
- 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
- 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 taxied to the runway with the rotor still spinning from his previous landing, maintaining above a 100 rotor rpm on his gyroplane. As he taxied onto the runway, he noted his rotor rpm at 117 and he began to accelerate to build rotor speed, pitching back slightly. The pilot heard a loud pop and thinking he may have blown a tire on his right main landing gear, he glanced over to visually confirm it. He then checked his rotor rpm and found it had decreased to 80. At that same time, the gyroplane began to shake and then quickly turned over on its right side and came to rest on the left side of the runway, which resulted in substantial damage to the empennage and main rotor. According to the manufacturer’s pilot operating handbook (POH), when taxiing the rotor is to be aligned with the gyroplane (stationary). The rotor pre-rotation procedure instructs the pilot to “increase engine power slowly until reaching 220 rotor rpm” and has a caution message that states, “CAUTION Start the take-off with the rotor between 150-200 rpm requires a high skill. It is forbidden to proceed with take-off operations if the rotor is under 150 rpm.” It is likely that the pilot did not have sufficient rotor rpm to avoid rotor flap during the takeoff roll based on his statement. Whether the flat tire occurred during the takeoff or as a result of the gyroplane rolling over on its side was not determined.
Probable cause
The pilot’s failure obtain the proper rotor rpm before applying power for the takeoff roll which resulted in a loss of control.
Verbatim NTSB analysis and probable cause from the NTSB dataset
Sources
NTSB record CEN26LA081
- Event ID
- 20260106202261
- Case number
- CEN26LA081
- 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: 19dcd006aac991c2ed9dd6bcab7f3a731a2c7bd3ad8e7c05c8c9a4ceed7aa4bf; retrieved 2026-09-16T20:39:16.263Z.