FTW90DRA02 · North American P-51-D
North American P-51-D · Accident: in flight encounter with weather en route
From Fort Lauderdale, FL to an unrecorded destination
Event
- NTSB case
- FTW90DRA02
- 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
- 0 · 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
- Instrument Meteorological Cond
North American P-51-D
- Aircraft type
- North American P-51
- 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
- N5483V
- Operator
- Unknown
- Onboard fatalities
- Unknown
- Route
- From Fort Lauderdale, FLTo 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
- En route · descent
- 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 encounter with weather
- 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 › In-flight planning/decision, inadequate
- Pilot in command › Preflight briefing service, not obtained
Approximate · Estimated position: the centre of Galveston, TX, the place the record names. Not the accident site.
NTSB narrative
FOLLOWING A CROSS COUNTRY FLIGHT, THE PILOT ARRIVED IN THE AREA OF HIS DESTINATION TO FIND THE WEATHER BELOW MINIMUMS. HE DIVERTED TO ANOTHER AIRPORT IN THE AREA AND ATTEMPTED TWO APPROACHES, BUT WAS UNABLE TO BREAK OUT DUE TO THE WEATHER. THE WEATHER AT THE TIME WAS 100 FOOT CEILING WITH .1 MILE VISIBILITY IN HAZE AND FOG. AFTER THE SECOND MISSED APPROACH, THE PILOT ADVISED ATC THAT HE WAS RUNNING LOW ON FUEL AND DID NOT HAVE ENOUGH TO EXECUTE A THIRD APPROACH OR DIVERT TO ANOTHER AIRPORT. HE SUBSEQUENTLY ELECTED TO DITCH THE AIRPLANE IN THE NEARBY GULF OF MEXICO. THE PILOT DEPARTED FORT LAUDERDALE, FLORIDA WITHOUT RECEIVING A WEATHER BRIEFING AND DID NOT OBTAIN ANY WEATHER INFORMATION EN ROUTE.
Probable cause
THE PILOT IN COMMAND'S FAILURE TO OBTAIN A WEATHER BRIEFING. ONTRIBUTING TO THE ACCIDENT WAS HIS INADEQUATE INFLIGHT PLANNING AND THE RESULTANT LOW FUEL STATE.
Verbatim NTSB analysis and probable cause from the NTSB dataset
Sources
NTSB record FTW90DRA02
- Event ID
- 20001212X22413
- Case number
- FTW90DRA02
- 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: ab5636f580d9f808503d53aa179f7c4014a59636db550987a042d1799d4c3c9b; retrieved 2026-09-21T15:45:31.098Z.