SEA00LA186 · de Havilland DH-100 MK.6 DH-100 MK.
de Havilland DH-100 MK.6 DH-100 MK. · Accident: loss of control in flight while maneuvering
From Ontario Municipal Airport (ONO) to UNKNOWN
Event
- NTSB case
- SEA00LA186
- 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
de Havilland DH-100 MK.6 DH-100 MK.
- Aircraft type
- de Havilland DH-100
- 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
- N152RD
- Operator
- Frederick H. Ihlenburg · private individual
- Onboard fatalities
- Unknown
- Route
- From Ontario Municipal Airport (ONO)To UNKNOWN
- 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, not maintained
Approximate · Coordinates as recorded by the NTSB; no uncertainty radius is established.
NTSB narrative
Most witnesses reported that while making a low, climbing pass during an aerial demonstration at an estimated altitude of 700 to 3,000 feet above ground level, the aircraft initiated a steep banked left turn, then abruptly rolled to the right (one witness reported that it rolled upside down at this point) and entered a spin (or a series of rolls), which continued until ground impact. The witnesses reported that they did not observe the aircraft on fire prior to the crash, that they did not see anything fall off the aircraft before impact, and that they heard the aircraft's engine during the accident sequence. No evidence of any pre-impact mechanical problems with the aircraft or engine was found during post-accident examinations of the aircraft wreckage. The Pilot's Notes for at least one variant of the type indicate that if the aircraft is stalled in a steep turn, the aircraft may 'flick' onto its back.
Probable cause
The pilot's failure to maintain adequate airspeed during low-altitude maneuvering flight, resulting in an accelerated stall and spin. A factor was the pilot's intentional low-altitude maneuvering flight.
Verbatim NTSB analysis and probable cause from the NTSB dataset
Sources
NTSB record SEA00LA186
- Event ID
- 20001212X22079
- Case number
- SEA00LA186
- 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: eaf836f63c1d04191ed783d90c392415de6a8905a6bb80165531f50a37bec8e9; retrieved 2026-09-20T20:52:01.319Z.