ATL99FA135 · North American T-6-SNJ-5
North American T-6-SNJ-5 · Accident: loss of control in flight while maneuvering
From Nashville International Airport (BNA) to an unrecorded destination
Event
- NTSB case
- ATL99FA135
- 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-SNJ-5
- 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
- N23ZH
- Operator
- Unknown
- Onboard fatalities
- Unknown
- Route
- From Nashville International Airport (BNA)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
- 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; Tree(s)
- 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, not maintained
- Pilot in command › Stall, inadvertent
Approximate · Coordinates as recorded by the NTSB; no uncertainty radius is established.
NTSB narrative
The airplane was seen by several eyewitnesses in the immediate vicinity of the accident site and flying over the city between 1000 and 800 feet above the ground. One witness reported that the airplane entered a nose low attitude, rolled inverted, and disappeared behind buildings. A witness near the accident site observed the airplane as it collided with a tree. Examination of the airframe and engine assemblies failed to disclose a mechanical malfunction or a component failure. The toxicological examinations for drugs disclosed that Benzoylecgonine was detected in both the blood and liver specimens. There were 0.073 ug/ml, ug/g and 0.327 ug/ml of Chlorpheniramine detected in the blood and liver specimens respectively. Benzoylecgonine is an inactive metabolite of cocaine. Chlorpheniramine is an antihistamine, commonly used in over-the-counter cold/allergy preparations.
Probable cause
The pilot's failure to maintain flying speed which resulted in a stall and the loss of control. A factor was pilot impairment due to the use of drugs.
Verbatim NTSB analysis and probable cause from the NTSB dataset
Sources
NTSB record ATL99FA135
- Event ID
- 20001212X19688
- Case number
- ATL99FA135
- 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: 2ee813e1ff92b086decaaaa1e54f43ab6bf5f7faf01171c54d8aaa2238d513f4; retrieved 2026-09-20T21:46:02.080Z.