ERA09LA356 · Chris Mitchell TITAN TORNADO II S
Chris Mitchell TITAN TORNADO II S · Accident: loss of control in flight during an emergency descent
From Chadbourn, NC to Chadbourn, NC
Event
- NTSB case
- ERA09LA356
- 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
Chris Mitchell TITAN TORNADO II S
- Aircraft type
- Chris Mitchell TITAN TORNADO
- 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
- N259CM
- Operator
- Shannon L. Harrelson · private individual
- Onboard fatalities
- Unknown
- Route
- From Chadbourn, NCTo Chadbourn, NC
- 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
- Emergency descent
- 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
- 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
- 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
Witnesses observed the pilot perform a normal engine run-up prior to takeoff. Shortly after takeoff they heard a momentary reduction in power, followed by an increase, before the engine completely lost power. The pilot initiated a right turn back to the airstrip and the witnesses observed the airplane stall, enter a spin, and impact the ground. Inspection of the wreckage revealed that the airplane impacted the ground at a steep angle and came to rest inverted. Fuel spillage was evident at the accident site. The fuel selector handle was found in an intermediate position (not on or off); however, this condition was observed after the extraction of the pilot from the wreckage. The engine was sent to the manufacturer’s facilities where a test run was performed. Multiple runs were accomplished and no evidence of a malfunction or failure was noted.
Probable cause
The pilot’s failure to maintain aircraft control during initial climb following a loss of engine power. The reason for the power loss was not determined.
Verbatim NTSB analysis and probable cause from the NTSB dataset
Sources
NTSB record ERA09LA356
- Event ID
- 20090618X14855
- Case number
- ERA09LA356
- 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: 578c5ce8d0fdc4058a971aff90fe256d0b19c2ad2591c7c31dd44b7fcfe522ca; retrieved 2026-09-13T20:17:11.452Z.