WPR10FA162 · North American AT6 F
North American AT6 F · Accident: low altitude operation/event while maneuvering
From Shafter Airport - Minter Field (MIT) to Shafter Airport - Minter Field (MIT)
Event
- NTSB case
- WPR10FA162
- 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
North American AT6 F
- Aircraft type
- North American AT6
- 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
- N75AG
- Operator
- Alfred F Goss · private individual
- Onboard fatalities
- Unknown
- Route
- From Shafter Airport - Minter Field (MIT), Shafter, CATo Shafter Airport - Minter Field (MIT), Shafter, 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
- Maneuvering · low-altitude flying
- 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
- Low altitude operation/event
- 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
- Not determined › Not determined
Approximate · Coordinates from the NTSB case API, not marked as estimated; no uncertainty radius is established.
NTSB narrative
The two pilots, one of whom owned the airplane, departed for a personal flight in the airplane, which was equipped with dual flight controls. A witness, who was an acquaintance of the pilot/owner, reported observing the airplane circle his farm, followed by a low pass over the farm at an estimated altitude of 150 to 200 feet above the ground. The witness then observed the airplane depart the area in a climb to the north. A second witness, who was located about 0.5 miles south of the accident site, reported observing the airplane circle overhead, followed by a constant, shallow rate of descent before it impacted terrain in a slightly nose down attitude. The second witness added that, at no time during the descent, did he observe the airplane’s attitude change, and he did not observe the airplane make any type of an evasive maneuver to avoid the impact with terrain. No determination could be made concerning which pilot was manipulating the controls at the time of the accident. Autopsies and toxicological testing of both pilots revealed no evidence of impairment or incapacitation. Postaccident examination of the engine and airframe revealed no evidence of any preexisting mechanical anomalies that would have precluded normal operation. The investigation was unable to determine why the pilots failed to avert the collision with terrain.
Probable cause
The pilots did not maintain clearance from terrain for undetermined reasons.
Verbatim NTSB analysis and probable cause from the NTSB dataset
Sources
NTSB record WPR10FA162
- Event ID
- 20100317X82631
- Case number
- WPR10FA162
- 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: e2d7b9b7cb8bb231db1d7413bdf1e8e93045f9dd92eeeae7347eba361c42b83f; retrieved 2026-09-13T20:43:08.904Z.