LAX91LA412 · Christian IND. EAGLE II
Christian IND. EAGLE II · Accident: in flight collision with terrain/water while maneuvering
From O04 · Carson City, NV to Truckee Tahoe Airport (TRK)
Event
- NTSB case
- LAX91LA412
- 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
Christian IND. EAGLE II
- Aircraft type
- Christian EAGLE
- 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
- N432EC
- Operator
- Beck, Donald · private individual
- Onboard fatalities
- Unknown
- Route
- From O04 · Carson City, NVTo Truckee Tahoe Airport (TRK), Truckee, CA
- 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
- In flight collision with terrain/water
- 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, delayed
Approximate · Coordinates as recorded by the NTSB; no uncertainty radius is established.
NTSB narrative
A CHRISTIAN EAGLE II COLLIDED WITH THE WATER WHILE PERFORMING AEROBATICS. NUMEROUS WITNESSES INDICATED THAT THE AIRPLANE APPEARED TO AERODYNAMICALLY STALL AT THE TOP OF A VERTICAL CLIMB AS IN A HAMMERHEAD MANEUVER AND THEN ENTERED INTO A SPIN. THE AIRPLANE STOPPED SPINNING AND CONTINUED TO DESCEND IN A 45 DEGREE NOSE DOWN ATTITUDE UNTIL IT COLLIDED WITH THE WATER'S SURFACE. THE PILOT HELD A FAA STATEMENT OF ACROBATIC COMPETENCY WHICH WAS ISSUED ON MAY 13, 1991. ACCORDING TO THE CHRISTIAN EAGLE II PILOT OPERATING HANDBOOK SPINS ARE APPROVED MANEUVERS AND MAY BE PERFORMED INTENTIONALLY.
Probable cause
THE FAILURE OF THE PILOT TO RECOVER FROM THE MANEUVER IN A TIMELY MANNER WHICH RESULTED IN THE AIRPLANE STRIKING THE WATER.
Verbatim NTSB analysis and probable cause from the NTSB dataset
Sources
NTSB record LAX91LA412
- Event ID
- 20001212X18138
- Case number
- LAX91LA412
- 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: 547a04271149644ffb7ae62ff3969215582da36602f7743d183707021321ab69; retrieved 2026-09-21T01:32:30.077Z.