CHI04LA100 · Christen A-1
Christen A-1 · Accident: in flight collision with terrain/water during takeoff
From Curtis, NE to Wallace Municipal Airport (64V)
Event
- NTSB case
- CHI04LA100
- 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
Christen A-1
- Aircraft type
- Christen A-1
- 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
- N9599B
- Operator
- Unknown
- Onboard fatalities
- Unknown
- Route
- From Curtis, NETo Wallace Municipal Airport (64V), Wallace, NE
- 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
- Takeoff
- 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
- In flight collision with terrain/water
- 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/clearance, not maintained
- Pilot in command › Low altitude flight/maneuver, performed
- Pilot in command › Ostentatious display
Approximate · Coordinates from the NTSB case API, which marks them as estimated or does not say; no uncertainty radius is established.
NTSB narrative
The airplane was destroyed by ground impact and post-impact fire while maneuvering at low altitude after takeoff. A witness reported that he watched and heard the pilot start the airplane and conduct a magneto and propeller check. The witness saw the airplane taxi out and start its takeoff roll to the south. He reported the airplane was in a steep climb and when the airplane stopped climbing, the pilot "kicked the tail around and attempted a hammerhead stall." He reported the airplane did not have enough altitude to recover and it impacted the ground, right wing low. The witness also reported that he did not hear any power change "from takeoff until the plane hit the ground."
Probable cause
The pilot's ostentatious display of a "hammerhead stall" during intial climb and his failure to maintain clearance from terrain. A factor was the post impact fire.
Verbatim NTSB analysis and probable cause from the NTSB dataset
Sources
NTSB record CHI04LA100
- Event ID
- 20040414X00463
- Case number
- CHI04LA100
- 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: local date, investigation status, coordinates. Values present in the bulk record are kept.
- The date is the local date; the NTSB stores the UTC date 2004-04-05.
- API snapshot SHA-256: 1592f0c7dce5ae90d04e2de08346acd17280758d2c40a13ccd1c6d0a95d6a700; retrieved 2026-09-20T18:30:31.740Z.