CEN09LA276 · Hawkins August E AVENTURA II
Hawkins August E AVENTURA II · Accident: aerodynamic stall/spin during takeoff
From Griffith-Merrillville Airport (05C) to Griffith-Merrillville Airport (05C)
Event
- NTSB case
- CEN09LA276
- 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
- 0 · 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
Hawkins August E AVENTURA II
- Aircraft type
- Hawkins August AVENTURA
- 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
- N20GH
- Operator
- Unknown
- Onboard fatalities
- Unknown
- Route
- From Griffith-Merrillville Airport (05C), Griffith, INTo Griffith-Merrillville Airport (05C), Griffith, IN
- 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
- Defining eventThe 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
- Aerodynamic 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
- Substantial
Cause areas
- Aircraft › Aircraft oper/perf/capability
- Personnel issues › Task performance
Approximate · Coordinates as recorded by the NTSB; no uncertainty radius is established.
NTSB narrative
The pilot reported that the airspeed indicator failed during takeoff. He elected to continue the takeoff because there was insufficient distance to stop on the remaining runway. The pilot intended to remain in the traffic pattern and return for landing. However, as the pilot turned to left crosswind the airplane became difficult to control, pitched down and impacted the ground. A post accident examination revealed that the tubing from the pitot tube was disconnected from a mating length of tubing located at the left wing root. The left wing root structure was intact and impact damage did not appear to have contributed to the pitot static system discontinuity. No other anomalies associated with a pre-impact failure were observed.
Probable cause
The pilot's failure to maintain control of the airplane due to an inadvertent stall. Contributing to the accident was the failure of the airspeed indicator due to separation of the pitot-static line at the left wing root.
Verbatim NTSB analysis and probable cause from the NTSB dataset
Sources
NTSB record CEN09LA276
- Event ID
- 20090505X14050
- Case number
- CEN09LA276
- Dataset
- full-current
- Source SHA-256
- 5cf380f0061817c0331a6b2d8cc7e0ee3a79bea469a1001dc5c10e56f35f5ab3
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: 36406230f515eda0ba3938d9ea47fa6f1ab1ffcd2c7d76d8ca0eca68f083164f; retrieved 2026-09-15T11:01:08.401Z.