DEN03FA074 · Christen Industries Pitts S-2B
Christen Industries Pitts S-2B · Accident: total loss of engine power (non-mechanical) while maneuvering
From 1V5 · Boulder, CO to an unrecorded destination
Event
- NTSB case
- DEN03FA074
- 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
- Not recorded
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
- N399DB
- Operator
- Unknown
- Onboard fatalities
- Unknown
- Route
- From 1V5 · Boulder, COTo 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
- Total loss of engine power (non-mechanical)
- 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
- Fuel exhaustion
- 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 › Aerobatics, improper
- Pilot in command › In-flight planning/decision, improper
Approximate · Coordinates from the NTSB case API, which marks them as estimated or does not say; no uncertainty radius is established.
NTSB narrative
Several witnesses observed the airplane prior to the accident. One witness said the airplane had been doing aerobatics in the area - "loops and figure eights" The witness said as the airplane proceeded eastward, it got lower in altitude. The witness said, "He was about 500 feet over the field, he did a low loop and came back up the backside of the loop in what appeared to be an attempt at a hammerhead stall. The engine sputtered and quit and there wasn't room for a recovery." Another witness said he was driving north and saw the airplane overhead. He said the airplane had just done a loop and was going up vertically. The witness said he lost sight of the airplane. When he saw the airplane again, it was coming down at nearly an 80-degree angle until it impacted into the field. A third witness said he heard the sound of the airplane's engine change suddenly. He said he looked up to see the airplane low to the ground and heading straight down. He said, "The engine sound was as if the engine had quit." A fourth witness said the airplane made several loud pops as it was heading towards the ground. An examination of the airplane's engine showed no fuel in the fuel distribution manifold, distribution lines, nozzles, fuel filter, or in the fuel lines from the main fuel tank to the engine fuel pumps. Approximately 0.10 ounces of fuel was retrieved from the engine driven fuel pump. The fuel boost pump was broken aft and showed no evidence of fuel. All other engine components examined and tested revealed no pre-impact anomalies. No other anomalies were found with the airplane.
Probable cause
the pilot's improper in-flight planning and decision that resulted in fuel exhaustion and his entering an aerobatic maneuver with insufficient altitude. Factors contributing to the accident were the low airspeed and low altitude, and the fuel exhaustion.
Verbatim NTSB analysis and probable cause from the NTSB dataset
Sources
NTSB record DEN03FA074
- Event ID
- 20030428X00580
- Case number
- DEN03FA074
- 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, coordinates. 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: 01ae64f7112cd53a36e8b359e2172f44e35dfcca87a103cf3599c52fe07c7491; retrieved 2026-09-20T19:17:02.597Z.