ATL97FA134 · North American T-6-SNJ5
North American T-6-SNJ5 · Accident: total loss of engine power (non-mechanical) while maneuvering
From Woodward Field (CDN) to an unrecorded destination
Event
- NTSB case
- ATL97FA134
- 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
- 2 · 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
North American T-6-SNJ5
- Aircraft type
- North American T-6
- 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
- N1047C
- Operator
- Unknown
- Onboard fatalities
- Unknown
- Route
- From Woodward Field (CDN)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
- Total loss of engine power (non-mechanical)
- 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
- Stall/spin
- 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 › Remedial action, not performed
- Pilot in command › Stall/spin, inadvertent
- Reason for occurrence undetermined
Approximate · Coordinates as recorded by the NTSB; no uncertainty radius is established.
NTSB narrative
Witnesses stated they saw a low flying airplane performing steep turns, approximately 60 - 70 degrees of bank. While in these turns, the engine began 'missing' and eventually quit. The airplane remained in a left bank, even though the engine was not running. After a few seconds, the witnesses saw the airplane 'snap, roll to the right, and enter a right hand spin'. According to the toxicological examination, the pilot had a drug, fluoxetine, in his system. Patients who are prescribed fluoxetine are not given medical certification by the FAA. This pilot was given a medical certification based on a letter from the pilot's cardiologist which stated the pilot was not being treated for clinical depression. The pilot also had Diltiazem which induces low blood pressure and slowed heart rate. Medical personnel indicated that Diltiazem can reduce the resistance to G-induced loss-of-consciousness (G-LOC). The pilot was issued a special issuance medical certificate, with no restrictions other than for vision, on January 31, 1997 based on a history of angina pectoris and coronary artery disease. Severe coronary artery disease can be aggravated by the physiological effects of acrobatic flight. According to FAR Part 67, the FAA may impose any operational restrictions on the certificate needed for safety.
Probable cause
The pilot's failure to take remedial action after a loss of engine power for undetermined reasons, leading to a spin. Factors were the pilot's use of unapproved medication, and the FAA's inadequate certification and standards for airman.
Verbatim NTSB analysis and probable cause from the NTSB dataset
Sources
NTSB record ATL97FA134
- Event ID
- 20001208X08782
- Case number
- ATL97FA134
- 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: 275ac232b5b2339d744b96132f83e6d955471a8a32e263e5ff7881ccd06d88e4; retrieved 2026-09-20T22:50:22.155Z.