WPR26FA101 · Sonex Aircraft ONEX
Sonex Aircraft ONEX · Accident: loss of control in flight during initial climb
Event
- NTSB case
- WPR26FA101
- 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
- Ongoing
- 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
Sonex Aircraft ONEX
- Aircraft type
- Sonex ONEX
- 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
- N362DZ
- Operator
- Unknown
- Onboard fatalities
- Unknown
- Route
- From not recordedTo not recorded
- Aircraft age
- About 6 years (built 2020)
- 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
- Initial climb
- 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
- Destroyed
Cause areas
No findings designated as a cause are recorded in the NTSB data yet.
Approximate · Coordinates from the NTSB case API, which marks them as estimated or does not say; no uncertainty radius is established.
NTSB narrative
On February 6, 2026, about 0945 mountain standard time, a Sonex Onex airplane, N362DZ, was destroyed when it was involved in an accident near Caldwell, Idaho. The pilot was fatally injured. The airplane was operated as a Title 14 Code of Federal Regulations Part 91 personal flight. A witness reported that he observed the accident airplane depart runway 12 at Caldwell Executive Airport (EUL) Caldwell, Idaho. The airplane transitioned into an initial climb and reached an altitude of about 200–300 ft above ground level. The airplane then entered a shallow right turn followed by a left turn that suddenly steepened to a bank angle of about 90°. During this maneuver, the witness reported that the airplane rapidly rolled to the right and then descended out of his field of view. The airplane impacted a field about 850 ft southeast of the runway departure end at an elevation of about 2,435 ft mean sea level. All major structures were located at the accident site. Flight control continuity was traced from the cockpit to the elevator, aileron, and rudder flight control surfaces. The main wreckage, consisting of the fuselage, wings, engine, and empennage, was oriented to the northeast. Impact signatures were consistent with a near wings-level attitude at a shallow descent angle. The impact ground scar was confined to the immediate wreckage area. A handheld GPS unit was retained for data recovery. The wreckage was recovered and transported to a secure facility for further examination.
Figure 1: Accident Site
Verbatim NTSB factual narrative from the NTSB dataset
Sources
NTSB record WPR26FA101
- Event ID
- 20260206202403
- Case number
- WPR26FA101
- 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. 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: c2b87cdc477658395f1d2179775ac76e3979d9c2eea11a32fed0aef9c71b260a; retrieved 2026-09-15T09:13:18.325Z.