CHI98MA260 · North American NA-265-80
North American NA-265-80 · Accident: loss of control in flight while maneuvering
From Newton City-County Airport (EWK) to Wichita Dwight D. Eisenhower National Airport (ICT)
Event
- NTSB case
- CHI98MA260
- 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 NA-265-80
- Aircraft type
- North American NA-265
- 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
- N547JL
- Operator
- Unknown
- Onboard fatalities
- Unknown
- Route
- From Newton City-County Airport (EWK), Newton, KSTo Wichita Dwight D. Eisenhower National Airport (ICT), Wichita, KS
- 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 › Aerobatics, attempted
- Pilot in command › Aircraft control, not maintained
- Pilot in command › In-flight planning/decision, improper
- Pilot in command › Overconfidence in personal ability
Approximate · Coordinates as recorded by the NTSB; no uncertainty radius is established.
NTSB narrative
The pilot dropped off a passenger at Newton Airport before continuing the flight. The passenger, who was a contract pilot for the company, reported there had been no indications of any problem with the airplane. The pilot conducted a low pass followed by a steep climb to 10,000 feet when he departed Newton. Seven minutes later in the flight, the cockpit voice recorder revealed the pilot stating, 'You're going to pitch up now and take it all the way around here.' The pilot said, 'Pitch up, twenty degrees up.' After the pilot called for the nose to be pitched up, he did not make any statements for about 27 seconds. Then the pilot stated, 'Oh, Jim.' Eight seconds later the airplane impacted the ground. Radar data indicated that airplane's altitude about the time the nose was pitched up was 15,900 feet msl, and it impacted the ground about 37 seconds later. All flight control surfaces were found at the impact site. No maneuver in the pilot's manual or the FAA's Commercial test guide required the nose to be pitched up 20 degrees while maintaining 250 knots. The aircraft was certified as a Transport Category aircraft and was not certified for aerobatic flight.
Probable cause
the pilot's overconfidence in his personal ability, his improper in-flight decision to attempt aerobatics, and his loss of control of the airplane.
Verbatim NTSB analysis and probable cause from the NTSB dataset
Sources
NTSB record CHI98MA260
- Event ID
- 20001211X10540
- Case number
- CHI98MA260
- 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: 51d59af9119c263ddbafcb65526e9c32c8d508461f3ec31e05f3b0bcd46e1a47; retrieved 2026-09-20T22:30:01.432Z.