FTW01LA168 · Schnitz FIIC-2 Goshawk
Schnitz FIIC-2 Goshawk · Accident: loss of control in flight during initial climb
From Zuehl Airport (1TE4) to an unrecorded destination
Event
- NTSB case
- FTW01LA168
- 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
- 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
Schnitz FIIC-2 Goshawk
- Aircraft type
- Schnitz FIIC-2
- 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
- N393Y
- Operator
- Unknown
- Onboard fatalities
- Unknown
- Route
- From Zuehl Airport (1TE4), Marion, 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
- Initial climb
- 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
- Reason for occurrence undetermined
Approximate · Coordinates as recorded by the NTSB; no uncertainty radius is established.
NTSB narrative
The two pilots were conducting a high speed taxi test run when the bi-wing, experimental, amateur-built airplane inadvertently took off. Witnesses observed the tandem-seat airplane make a "sharp turn to the left", "stall," impact terrain and catch fire. During the brief flight, witnesses heard a surging noise. The airplane had never been flown before and had been issued an experimental airworthiness certificate two months prior to the accident. According to people at the airport, the front seat pilot had been working on the airplane for over a year and had never flown it. They added that the propeller governor had been removed and reinstalled a few days prior to the accident. The rear seat pilot stated that it was his understanding that the airplane was not supposed to takeoff. Toxicology tests on the front seat pilot revealed 0.05 ug/ml of diphenhydramine in the pilot's blood, an unquantified amount of diphenhydramine in the liver, and 1.076 ug/ml of acetaminophen in the pilot's blood. Acetaminophen is an over-the-counter pain reliever commonly known by the trade name Tylenol. Diphenhydramine is an over-the-counter antihistamine. A study on the effects of diphenhydramine on driving performance revealed that the drug significantly impaired a person's ability to maneuver an automobile. Examination of the propeller governor revealed that the booster pump drive shaft was coated with what appeared to be a cooked oil coating, and the pilot valve was sticking inside the booster pump drive shaft. It could not be determined if the cooked oil coating was a result of the post crash fire or a pre-existing condition.
Probable cause
the loss of control on takeoff for undetermined reasons.
Verbatim NTSB analysis and probable cause from the NTSB dataset
Sources
NTSB record FTW01LA168
- Event ID
- 20010728X01548
- Case number
- FTW01LA168
- 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: c0ee0d00ee6ced02d2f030755cd8b9d34423f31b31ac3e3677d642e34d568477; retrieved 2026-09-20T20:26:45.423Z.