NTSB CAROL · Event
Event WPR12LA214
Aircraft involved
Probable cause & findings
The pilot's failure to maintain airplane control while on approach for landing in gusting wind conditions.
Factual narrative
On May 17, 2012, about 1150 mountain daylight time, an experimental Marley Kolb Firestarter II airplane, N9173T, impacted the ground in an open field about 100 yards north of the Cedar Valley Airport (UT10), Cedar Fort, Utah. The sport pilot/owner, the sole occupant, operated the airplane under the provisions of 14 Code of Federal Regulations (CFR) Part 91 as a personal flight. The pilot received serious injuries; the airplane came to rest inverted and was substantially damaged. Visual meteorological conditions prevailed for the flight, and no flight plan was filed. The flight departed from an unknown location. A witness reported that she observed the airplane start to wobble during its landing sequence. She stated it was a windy day and that a sudden gust of wind caused the airplane to tip on its side while in the air. It appeared that the pilot attempted to level off the airplane but was unsuccessful. The airplane subsequently impacted the open terrain near the runway and rolled several times before coming to rest inverted. The Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) inspector who responded to the accident site was able to establish flight control continuity. He reported local thunderstorms with microburst in the area. The pilot did not provide a completed NTSB Pilot/Operator Aircraft Accident Report Form 6120.1 nor a written statement to the investigator. A witness reported observing the airplane start to wobble while approaching the airport to land. She stated that it was a windy day and that a sudden wind gust caused the airplane to tip on its side while in the air; thunderstorms with microbursts were reported in the area at the time of the accident. She added that it appeared that the pilot attempted to level off the airplane but was unsuccessful. The airplane subsequently impacted open terrain near the runway and rolled several times before coming to rest inverted. A postaccident examination of the airplane confirmed primary flight control continuity. Source: NTSB Aviation Accident Database Retrieved: 2026-02-12
NTSB Findings
Hierarchical cause / factor breakdown from the FAA bulk avdata database. Each finding tagged C (Cause) or F (Factor).
- C Personnel issues-Task performance-Use of equip/info-Aircraft control-Pilot - C
- C Aircraft-Aircraft oper/perf/capability-Performance/control parameters-(general)-Not attained/maintained - C
- C Environmental issues-Conditions/weather/phenomena-Wind-Gusts-Response/compensation - C
Verbatim from NTSB's published report. Source file
NTSB_2012_WPR12LA214.txt.
Findings + structured fields enriched from FAA avall.mdb.
Full investigation docket on
data.ntsb.gov ↗.
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Related research
What the literature says.
Academic papers and agency reports matching this event's aircraft type or causal vocabulary (thunderstorm, microburst). Sourced from NASA NTRS, NTSB Safety Studies, FAA CAMI, AOPA Air Safety Institute, Embry-Riddle Scholarly Commons, arXiv, and the Semantic Scholar academic graph.
- NASA NTRS 2019 · Contractor Report (CR)
An Examination of Aviation Accidents Associated with Turbulence, Wind Shear and Thunderstorm
The focal point of the study reported here was the definition and examination of turbulence, wind shear and thunderstorm in relation to aviation accidents.
- Embry-Riddle Scholarly Commons 2024 · Journal article (IJAAA)
The Impact of Thunderstorms on Take-off Data in South Africa
Aviation and meteorology are entwined disciplines, as aviation occurs in the atmosphere. Prevailing weather conditions at take-off are of utmost importance to aviation.
- NASA NTRS 2019 · Conference Paper
Optimal recovery from microburst wind shear
The flight path of a twin-jet transport aircraft is optimized in a microburst encounter during approach to landing. The objective is to execute an escape maneuver that maintains safe ground clearance …
- NASA NTRS 2019 · Conference Paper
Performance limits for optimal microburst encounter
An effort has been made to ascertain the envelope-edges for uneventful aircraft penetrations of microburst windshears on the basis of optimal aircraft control strategies.
- NASA NTRS 2019 · Conference Paper
Aircraft performance in a JAWS microburst
Attention is given to the detailed features of a servere microburst event, the flight behavior of a 727 airliner in such an event as predicted by a numerical simulation, and several low level wind she…
- NASA NTRS 2019 · Conference Paper
Assessment of microburst models for downdraft estimation
The effectiveness of three microburst models in estimating the downdraft from horizontal velocity measurements is assessed. The development of the models and their characteristics are discussed.
Browse the full corpus — academia portal ↗