LAX96FA106 · Convair C-131E
Convair C-131E · Accident: in flight collision with object during initial climb
From St Johns Industrial Air Park (SJN) to Brownsville South Padre Island International Airport (BRO)
Event
- NTSB case
- LAX96FA106
- 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
- 4 · 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
Convair C-131E
- Aircraft type
- Convair C-131
- 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
- N131T
- Operator
- Unknown
- Onboard fatalities
- Unknown
- Route
- From St Johns Industrial Air Park (SJN)To Brownsville South Padre Island International Airport (BRO), Brownsville, TX
- 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
- Initial climb
- 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
- In flight collision with object
- Also codedOther events the NTSB coded in the sequence, such as a wire strike after a loss of power. Flight Findings uses them for its kinds of event. Glossary
- Wire, transmission
- 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 weight and balance, exceeded
- Pilot in command › Airspeed, not attained
- Pilot in command › Flaps, not used
- Pilot in command › Preflight planning/preparation, inadequate
Approximate · Coordinates as recorded by the NTSB; no uncertainty radius is established.
NTSB narrative
Witnesses observed the aircraft departing from runway 14 with a rolling start. They said the aircraft rotated at the departure end of the runway and remained in ground effect with an excessive, nose high attitude. It then struck the airport perimeter fence, a barrier wall, and power lines. Power line wires were dragged through a residentual area, resulting in additional damage. The airplane then crashed in a pasture and burned. Investigation revealed the airplane had been loaded to a gross weight (GW) of 50,870 lbs. Its maximum GW was limited to 48,000 lbs at sea level with the use of antidetonation injection (ADI) fluid and 40,900 lbs without ADI. Density altitude at the airport was 6200 feet. For conditions at the airport, maximum GW for takeoff with ADI and 15 degrees of flaps was 43,205 lbs; without ADI and with 13 degrees of flaps, maximum GW was 38,909 lbs. The airplane flaps were found in the retracted position, but there was no performance data for takeoff with the flaps retracted. No ADI fluid was found in the line to the right engine, although it was intact; the ADI tank was destroyed; the ADI line to the left engine was damaged. The airplane was being flown under provision of a ferry permit, which did not provide for the cargo or the two passengers that were aboard. The first pilot (PIC) had accrued about 8 hours of flight experience in the make and model of airplane.
Probable cause
inadequate preflight planning and preparation by the first pilot (PIC), his failure to ensure the aircraft was properly loaded within limitations, his failure to use proper flaps for takeoff, his failure to use ADI assisted takeoff, and his resultant failure to attain sufficient airspeed to climb after takeoff. Factors relating to the accident were: the high density altitude, and the PIC's lack of experience in the make and model of airplane.
Verbatim NTSB analysis and probable cause from the NTSB dataset
Sources
NTSB record LAX96FA106
- Event ID
- 20001208X05271
- Case number
- LAX96FA106
- 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: 298b061dd30f0de3a8b792b3cf1e033ac731e3057946d45e9a7c50d9f196ee46; retrieved 2026-09-20T23:26:27.071Z.