FTW90FA037 · Christen Industries PITTS S-2B
Christen Industries PITTS S-2B · Accident: loss of control in flight while maneuvering
From Hicks Air Field (T67) to an unrecorded destination
Event
- NTSB case
- FTW90FA037
- 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
Christen Industries PITTS S-2B
- Aircraft type
- Christen PITTS S-2B
- 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
- N6031U
- Operator
- Vernon C. Rawls · private individual
- Onboard fatalities
- Unknown
- Route
- From Hicks Air Field (T67), Fort Worth, TXTo 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 › Altitude, misjudged
- Pilot in command › Remedial action, delayed
Approximate · Coordinates as recorded by the NTSB; no uncertainty radius is established.
NTSB narrative
THE PILOT WAS PERFORMING AEROBATIC MANEUVERS OVER AN OPEN FIELD. HE ACCOMPLISHED A HAMMERHEAD STALL & THE AIRCRAFT WAS DESCENDING, WHEN IT STARTED A RIGHT SPIN. WITNESSES OBSERVED THE PILOT ATTEMPTING TO RECOVER FROM THE SPIN & HEARD THE ENGINE BACKFIRE SEVERAL TIMES BEFORE FULL POWER WAS APPLIED. THE AIRPLANE WAS THEN AT A LOW ALTITUDE AS THE PILOT WAS SEEN TO RECOVER AND ATTEMPT TO PULL UP. THE AIRPLANE IMPACTED IN AN OPEN FIELD IN A 35 DEGREE NOSE LOW ATTITUDE AND NEAR WINGS LEVEL POSITION. NO MECHANICAL MALFUNCTION WAS NOTED DURING THE INVESTIGATION.
Probable cause
THE PILOT'S DELAYED REMEDIAL ACTION TO RECOVER FROM THE SPIN AND HIS MISJUDGING OF ALTITUDE.
Verbatim NTSB analysis and probable cause from the NTSB dataset
Sources
NTSB record FTW90FA037
- Event ID
- 20001213X29792
- Case number
- FTW90FA037
- 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: 54d19bf8c22085bf4b83240b1a8ba009ab1806e48cea9c91a16e73014807c12d; retrieved 2026-09-21T03:04:39.150Z.