Skip to content

Atlas / NTSB / WPR21LA345

NTSB CAROL · Event

Event WPR21LA345

2021-07-24 Rock Springs, Wyoming, United States Airport · KRKS None 1 aircraft Status: Completed

Aircraft involved

Probable cause & findings

The pilot’s improper pitch control during takeoff which resulted in an aerodynamic stall and subsequent hard landing

Factual narrative

The pilot reported that, before takeoff he calculated the density altitude to be 9,700 ft. During takeoff, shortly after rotation, he “felt” that the airplane was slightly nose high and the stall warning horn aural alert activated, and the airplane began to shudder. The pilot then aborted the takeoff after he found it difficult to nose the airplane down to attain airspeed. About 10 ft above the ground, the airplane aerodynamically stalled and landed tail first then a hard bounce on the main landing gear. Subsequently, the right wing sustained substantial damage. The pilot reported that there were no preaccident mechanical failures or malfunctions with the airplane that would have precluded normal operation. 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).

  • Personnel issues-Task performance-Use of equip/info-Aircraft control-Pilot
  • Aircraft-Aircraft oper/perf/capability-Performance/control parameters-Pitch control-Not attained/maintained
  • Aircraft-Aircraft oper/perf/capability-Performance/control parameters-Airspeed-Not attained/maintained
  • Aircraft-Aircraft oper/perf/capability-Performance/control parameters-Angle of attack-Not attained/maintained
  • Environmental issues-Conditions/weather/phenomena-Temp/humidity/pressure-High density altitude-Effect on equipment

Verbatim from NTSB's published report. Source file NTSB_2021_WPR21LA345.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 ↗