FTW01FA117 · Convair BT-13A
Confederate Air Force Convair BT-13A · Accident: loss of control in flight on approach
From Midland International Air and Space Port (MAF) to an unrecorded destination
Event
- NTSB case
- FTW01FA117
- 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
- Unknown
- 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
Convair BT-13A
- Aircraft type
- Convair BT-13
- 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
- N66791
- Operator
- Confederate Air Force
- Onboard fatalities
- Unknown
- Route
- From Midland International Air and Space Port (MAF), Midland, 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
- Approach · VFR go-around
- 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
- 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 · Estimated position: the centre of Odessa, TX, the place the record names. Not the accident site.
NTSB narrative
The commercial pilot was undergoing his 7th hour of dual familiarization training in the airplane. The airplane approached the airport from the east, over flew the south end of the airport, and then executed a left teardrop turn to runway 34. According to witnesses at the airport, the airplane was on final approach to runway 34, approximately 150 feet agl, when they heard power applied to the engine. Subsequently, the right wing dropped, the airplane impacted the ground, contacted a steel pole, and came to a stop upright. The witness accounts and ground scars are consistent with the airplane encountering a stall. One witness, who was located on the airport, reported that at the time of the accident the wind was from the south at 10 mph. Two minutes prior to the accident, two weather observation facilities that are located 7 miles northeast and 9 miles northwest of the accident site, reported wind from 200 degrees at 13 knots and gusting to 20 knots and wind from 210 degrees at 11 knots and gusting to 19 knots, respectively. The airframe and engine were examined and no pre-impact anomalies were noted that would have precluded their operation.
Probable cause
the pilot's failure to maintain the minimum required airspeed for flight, which resulted in a loss of control while performing a go-around. A contributing factor to the accident was the gusty tailwind condition.
Verbatim NTSB analysis and probable cause from the NTSB dataset
Sources
NTSB record FTW01FA117
- Event ID
- 20010521X00971
- Case number
- FTW01FA117
- 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: de42ee7550f7e41f7af23409379949b85130201d8cac667dda20817b16054664; retrieved 2026-09-20T20:33:10.393Z.