CEN10LA409 · Davis John TR-4
Davis John TR-4 · Accident during initial climb
From Denton, TX to Denton, TX
Event
- NTSB case
- CEN10LA409
- 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
Davis John TR-4
- Aircraft type
- Davis John TR-4
- 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
- N767GW
- Operator
- Unknown
- Onboard fatalities
- Unknown
- Route
- From Denton, TXTo Denton, TX
- 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
- Initial climb
- 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
- Unknown or undetermined
- 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 power plant
Approximate · Coordinates as recorded by the NTSB; no uncertainty radius is established.
NTSB narrative
Shortly after clearing the airplane for takeoff, the air traffic tower controller noticed that the airplane’s climb did not appear to be normal. The airplane appeared to descend, bank to the right, and then disappear behind a line of trees. The airplane impacted the ground near a set of power lines and a postcrash fire ensued. The pilot recalled little about the events leading up to the accident. He did report that the engine lost power. The postcrash fire consumed part of the cabin area and thermally damaged the engine’s electrical components, so an examination of the fire-damaged electronic ignition and fuel control systems could not be conducted. Further examination of the engine, airframe and other airplane systems failed to identify any preimpact abnormalities. A review of the airplane's records indicated that the pilot was having weight and balance issues with the airplane. The pilot had to add aft ballast to compensate for a nose-heavy condition. The reason for any potential loss of engine power and for the loss of control could not be determined.
Probable cause
A loss of engine power and the pilot’s subsequent loss of control for undetermined reasons.
Verbatim NTSB analysis and probable cause from the NTSB dataset
Sources
NTSB record CEN10LA409
- Event ID
- 20100719X01736
- Case number
- CEN10LA409
- 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: local date, investigation status. Values present in the bulk record are kept.
- The date is the local date; the NTSB stores the UTC date 2010-07-19.
- API snapshot SHA-256: 764826ed732f8cf514345af26613daaea90b7a5642dce01a656351c38de5d902; retrieved 2026-09-13T20:57:20.352Z.