FTW97LA353 · Aerotek PITTS S-2A
Aerotek PITTS S-2A · Accident: loss of control in flight while maneuvering
From HYI to an unrecorded destination
Event
- NTSB case
- FTW97LA353
- 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
Aerotek PITTS S-2A
- Aircraft type
- Aerotek PITTS S-2A
- 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
- N73EW
- Operator
- Unknown
- Onboard fatalities
- Unknown
- Route
- From HYITo 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
- 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 › Airspeed, low
Approximate · Coordinates as recorded by the NTSB; no uncertainty radius is established.
NTSB narrative
Witnesses at the airport reported that the fully aerobatic biplane impacted the infield area between runway 21 and the parallel taxiway in a near level attitude at a high rate of speed while recovering from a spin. Prior to the accident, the biplane had been performing an aerobatic routine for 12 to 15 minutes. The airplane made a high speed pass across the field from west to east at an estimated altitude of 200 feet AGL, followed by a near vertical climb to approximately 2,000 feet AGL. At that point the airplane was observed rolling inverted while on a westerly heading. The airplane was then observed rolling to the upright position, immediately performing a snap roll to the right, and then entering a spin. One of the witnesses, an aerobatic judge who was not judging the airshow, stated that 'the pilot entered a snap roll maneuver with insufficient airspeed.' Witnesses reported that the engine was operating at a high power setting and the propeller was turning during the airplane's descent. Examination of the airframe by the FAA inspectors at the site did not disclose any evidence of pre-impact mechanical failure or malfunction.
Probable cause
The pilot's loss of control while performing aerobatics resulting in an inadvertent stall/spin. A factor was the lack of altitude available for recovery.
Verbatim NTSB analysis and probable cause from the NTSB dataset
Sources
NTSB record FTW97LA353
- Event ID
- 20001208X08848
- Case number
- FTW97LA353
- 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: b3be132f9f643e4c325ab36b840c7dceb715a7d90023612084b14c086bae16fb; retrieved 2026-09-20T22:48:57.817Z.