CHI05LA082 · Matthews Christen Eagle II
Matthews Christen Eagle II · Accident: loss of control in flight while maneuvering
From Iowa City Municipal Airport (IOW) to an unrecorded destination
Event
- NTSB case
- CHI05LA082
- 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
Matthews Christen Eagle II
- Aircraft type
- Matthews CHRISTEN EAGLE
- 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
- N85SM
- Operator
- Unknown
- Onboard fatalities
- Unknown
- Route
- From Iowa City Municipal Airport (IOW), Iowa City, IATo 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
- 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/spin
- 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 › Aircraft control, not maintained
- Pilot in command › Airspeed, inadequate
Approximate · Coordinates from the NTSB case API, which marks them as estimated or does not say; no uncertainty radius is established.
NTSB narrative
The aerobatic experimental amateur-built biplane was destroyed on impact with terrain following an in-flight loss of control while aerobatically maneuvering. The private pilot and commercial pilot, certificated front seat occupant were fatally injured. A witness stated, "As it passed overhead it did a barrel roll, left wing down first ... 1 ½ rolls ending up upside down for several seconds. While the plane was upside down we noticed the plane rotating around its center point. It lost altitude and stayed stalled." On-scene examination of the wreckage revealed no pre-impact anomalies. Clear skies and light surface winds existed at the time of the accident. The Civil Aeromedical Institute's Final Forensic Toxicology Accident Report for the front seat pilot rated occupant stated, "58.08 (ug/ml, ug/g) ACETAMINOPHEN detected in Urine, ACETAMINOPHEN NOT detected in Blood." The pilots were found not wearing parachutes. FAA regulation 91.307 Parachutes and parachuting, in-part, stated, "(c) Unless each occupant of the aircraft is wearing an approved parachute, no pilot of a civil aircraft carrying any person (other than a crewmember) may execute any intentional maneuver that exceeds- (1) A bank of 60 degrees relative to the horizon; or (2) A nose-up or nose-down attitude of 30 degrees relative to the horizon." The pilots sustained similar injuries to their right upper extremities. With the available evidence it was not possible to conclusively determine that either pilot was actually holding the controls at the time of impact. Weight and balance calculations showed the airplane's center of gravity exceeded the airplane's published aft center of gravity limit.
Probable cause
The pilot not maintaining airplane control and airspeed, and the stall/spin encountered during aerobatic maneuvering. A factor in the accident was the pilot exceeding the published airplane's aft center of gravity limit and a factor in the pilot rated occupant's fatal injury was approved personal parachutes not being worn during aerobatics as required by regulation.
Verbatim NTSB analysis and probable cause from the NTSB dataset
Sources
NTSB record CHI05LA082
- Event ID
- 20050329X00378
- Case number
- CHI05LA082
- 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: ff873f3d15bf3a401e30ce52ffa13a54b0f5919661e15ce234e672016f8ee987; retrieved 2026-09-20T18:05:50.459Z.