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Atlas / NTSB / DCA83AA036

NTSB CAROL · Event

Event DCA83AA036

1983-08-21 SILVANA, Washington, United States Airport · S88 Fatal 1 aircraft Status: Completed

Registry · N116CA

FAA Aircraft Registry record.

Make / Model

COSTRUZIONI AERONAUTICHE TECNA P-MENTOR

Year of manufacture

2025

TCDS

A000671B · COSTRUZIONI AERONAUTICHE TECNA S P A

Engine

ROTAX 912ISC (100 hp)

Seats / Engines

2 seats · 1 engine

Last airworthiness date

20250708

ADS-B equipped

Yes — Mode-S A042B0

Registrant of record

LSA PARTNERS II LLC

Source: FAA Aircraft Registry (releasable master file).

Aircraft involved

Factual narrative

THE ACFT WAS ON A SPORT PARACHUTE FLT TO CARRY 24 PARACHUTISTS TO 12,500' OVER A DROP ZONE (DZ) FOR A MASS JUMP. IT WAS IN A CARGO CONFIGURATION WITH NO PASSENGER SEATS, BUT IT HAD 1 JUMP SEAT. THERE WERE 24 SEAT BELTS ON THE FLOOR OF THE CARGO AREA. ALSO, THE CABIN DOOR HAD BEEN REMOVED & AN UNAPPROVED STEP & 4 HANDHOLDS WERE INSTALLED OUTSIDE & FORWARD OF THE CABIN DOOR FOR PARACHUTISTS. THE USUAL JUMP-RUN PROCEDURE WAS FOR THE ACFT TO BE SLOWED TO 95 TO 100 KTS, EXTEND THE GEAR & APCH FLAPS & REDUCE POWER ON THE LEFT ENG. THE JUMPERS REMAINED IN POSITION WITHOUT USING SEAT BELTS UNTIL APCHG THE DZ, THEN 2 MOVED OUTSIDE THE ACFT WHILE OTHERS MOVED CLOSE TO THE DOORWAY. THE 1ST JUMPERS WERE UNAWARE OF ANYPROBLEM, BUT SAW THE ACFT ENTER A STEEP BANK, ROLL OVER & SPIRAL NOSE DOWN. 16 JUMPERS EXITED THE ACFT, BUT 3 HIT THE STABILIZER. THE ACFT CRASHED IN A NEAR VERTICAL DSCNT. INVESTIGATION REVEALED THE CG WAS BEHIND THE AFT LIMIT FOR TAKEOFF & THE JUMP. THE ELEVATOR TRIM ACTUATOR WAS FOUND IN A POSITION FOR FULL NOSE-UP TRIM. Source: NTSB Aviation Accident Database (Pre-2008 Archive) Retrieved: 2026-02-12

Verbatim from NTSB's published report. Source file NTSB_1983_DCA83AA036.txt. Findings + structured fields enriched from FAA avall.mdb. Full investigation docket on data.ntsb.gov ↗.

Related research

What the literature says.

Academic papers and agency reports matching this event's aircraft type or causal vocabulary (stall). Sourced from NASA NTRS, NTSB Safety Studies, FAA CAMI, AOPA Air Safety Institute, Embry-Riddle Scholarly Commons, arXiv, and the Semantic Scholar academic graph.

Browse the full corpus — academia portal ↗