CHI96FA005 · Blatter-Pitts S2S
Blatter-Pitts S2S · Accident: loss of control in flight while maneuvering
From Waukegan National Airport (UGN) to an unrecorded destination
Event
- NTSB case
- CHI96FA005
- 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
- 1 · 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
Blatter-Pitts S2S
- Aircraft type
- Blatter Pitts S2
- 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
- N61AC
- Operator
- Unknown
- Onboard fatalities
- Unknown
- Route
- From Waukegan National Airport (UGN)To not recorded
- Aircraft age
- Not recorded
- 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
- Maneuvering
- First occurrenceThe 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
- Pilot in command › Aircraft control, not maintained
Approximate · Coordinates as recorded by the NTSB; no uncertainty radius is established.
NTSB narrative
The airshow pilot was performing a series of shoulder rolls 250 to 300 feet above the ground. The airplane completed a fifth rolling maneuver when it began a descent towards the runway. The airplane collided with the runway and slid off onto the clearway area next to the runway. The on-scene investigation revealed no control system, engine, or propeller failure. The pilot had received his low altitude aerobatic waiver about 1 month before the accident. An airshow promoter/witness said the pilot kept losing altitude during the maneuvers he was performing. The airplane's builder and advanced aerobatic competititor told the pilot's manager that the pilot was not ready to fly the airshow circuit. The airplane's center of gravity was about 3/4-inch aft of the rear limit.
Probable cause
the pilot's failure to maintain airplane control during the aerobatic maneuver. Factors associated with the accident were: an improper weight and balance with a center of gravity aft of the rear limit, the pilot's overconfidence in his personal ability, and his lack of total experience in the aerobatic maneuver being performed.
Verbatim NTSB analysis and probable cause from the NTSB dataset
Sources
NTSB record CHI96FA005
- Event ID
- 20001207X04655
- Case number
- CHI96FA005
- Dataset
- historical-pre2008
- Source SHA-256
- 89e2df6d848e7ab3b42e7d7c7a03ff403303057a26ca04c95b3ea67201c3ce74
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. 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: 19d9556c6a3f3296586953adad86583493baafc37821cf0b9ce08a0e73dd03e7; retrieved 2026-09-20T23:34:03.467Z.