WPR10LA137 · Fouga CM 170 MAGISTER
Fouga CM 170 MAGISTER · Accident: loss of control in flight during takeoff
From Imperial County Airport (IPL) to Brown Field Municipal Airport (SDM)
Event
- NTSB case
- WPR10LA137
- 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
Fouga CM 170 MAGISTER
- Aircraft type
- Fouga CM-170
- 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
- N6222N
- Operator
- Reginald Finch
- Onboard fatalities
- Unknown
- Route
- From Imperial County Airport (IPL), Imperial, CATo Brown Field Municipal Airport (SDM), San Diego, CA
- 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
- 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
- Personnel issues › Action/decision
- Personnel issues › Task performance
Approximate · Coordinates from the NTSB case API, which marks them as estimated or does not say; no uncertainty radius is established.
NTSB narrative
During the takeoff roll, the airplane accelerated slower than normal and approximately 1,500 feet down the runway, the nose abruptly rose and the airplane lifted off. The airplane continued in ground effect until, according to a witness, the right and left wings alternatively dropped, the left wing stalled, and the airplane rolled until it impacted the ground. The witness stated that prior to the airplane's takeoff, he saw the airplane taxiing to the runway and both speed brakes were deployed. He could not see the speed brakes during the takeoff, but felt that the pilot may have rotated the airplane from the runway too soon. Following the accident, FAA inspectors found the right speed brake deployed approximately halfway. The left speed brake was found stowed. No mechanical anomalies were identified. The speed brakes, which are located on the side of the fuselage aft of the wing, are electrically controlled and hydraulically operated. To set the position of the speed brakes, the pilot activates a switch in the cockpit, visually looks at the speed brakes, and releases the switch when the speed brakes are in the desired position. During the landing approach, the speed brakes are normally deployed halfway.
Probable cause
The pilot's inadequate preflight inspection and his failure to ensure that the speed brakes were retracted, which resulted in a loss of control during takeoff.
Verbatim NTSB analysis and probable cause from the NTSB dataset
Sources
NTSB record WPR10LA137
- Event ID
- 20100217X81849
- Case number
- WPR10LA137
- 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, 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: 853f26f3ede512e8799752f41ecfb8bd6f06223d98539462daffcfe405ec6d8c; retrieved 2026-09-15T13:41:03.727Z.