NYC90LA142 · North American AT-6
North American AT-6 · Accident: loss of control in flight while maneuvering
From Buffalo Niagara International Airport (BUF) to an unrecorded destination
Event
- NTSB case
- NYC90LA142
- 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
North American AT-6
- Aircraft type
- North American AT-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
- N44ZZ
- Operator
- Gifford T. Foyle · private individual
- Onboard fatalities
- Unknown
- Route
- From Buffalo Niagara International Airport (BUF), Buffalo, NYTo 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
- 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 › Impairment(drugs)
Approximate · Estimated position: the centre of Buffalo, NY, the place the record names. Not the accident site.
NTSB narrative
THE PILOT WAS PERFORMING AEROBATIC MANEUVERS IN AN AIRSHOW. THE PILOT WAS EXECUTING A ROLL WHEN AFTER 270 DEGREES OF ROLL, THE RATE DECREASED CONSIDERABLY. THE NOSE DROPPED AND THE AIRPLANE IMPACTED THE WATER IN A 40 DEGREE NOSE DOWN, 45 DEGREES RIGHT WING LOW ATTITUDE. THE PILOT WAS FOUND TO HAVE A PACKAGE OF 'CALMEX' IN HIS CLOTHING. THIS IS AN OVER THE COUNTER ANTIHISTAMINE. IN ADDITION, THE DRUG DIPHENHYDRAMINE WAS FOUND IN HIS BLOOD, LIVER, AND STOMACH. ACCORDING TO THE FAA EASTERN REGION FLIGHT SURGEON, THE DRUG COULD CAUSE SLOWED REACTION TIMES AND DROSSINESS, AND COULD AFFECT THE PILOT'S PERCEPTION OF EQUILIBRIUM.
Probable cause
LOSS OF CONTROL IN FLIGHT DUE TO PHYSICAL IMPAIRMENT. FACTORS RELATED TO THE ACCIDENT WERE: THE PILOTS USE OF AN OVER THE COUNTER ANTIHISTAMINE.
Verbatim NTSB analysis and probable cause from the NTSB dataset
Sources
NTSB record NYC90LA142
- Event ID
- 20001212X23785
- Case number
- NYC90LA142
- 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: b68925eee567bd39c23aa55ff9b3bd740bbe73286875b7191b3a04c4f4b89bde; retrieved 2026-09-21T02:32:10.531Z.