CEN12CA026 · Jantzen EVANS VP
Jantzen EVANS VP · Accident: aerodynamic stall/spin during initial climb
From Airpark East Airport (1F7) to Airpark East Airport (1F7)
Event
- NTSB case
- CEN12CA026
- 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
Jantzen EVANS VP
- Aircraft type
- Jantzen EVANS VP
- 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
- N331EJ
- Operator
- King Grady W
- Onboard fatalities
- Unknown
- Route
- From Airpark East Airport (1F7), Rockwall, TXTo Airpark East Airport (1F7), Rockwall, 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
- 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, after a preflight inspection and normal run up, he taxied to the runway for takeoff. The airplane lifted off the runway about midfield but was not climbing as expected, although the engine was operating normally. As the airplane climbed through about 100 feet above ground level, the pilot thought that the airplane was losing lift or stalling, so he lowered the nose and simultaneously banked right to avoid the tops of a stand of trees near the departure end of the runway. During the turn, the airplane stalled and impacted the ground. The airplane sustained substantial damage to the fuselage and wings. The pilot reported that the airplane was near its maximum gross takeoff weight at the time of the accident, which could have explained the less-than-expected climb performance. He also stated that if he had not had to maneuver away from trees just beyond the departure end of the runway, he may have effected a landing without incident.
Probable cause
The pilot’s inadequate preflight planning, in that he did not determine whether the airplane’s climb performance would be sufficient to clear obstacles before initiating take off.
Verbatim NTSB analysis and probable cause from the NTSB dataset
Sources
NTSB record CEN12CA026
- Event ID
- 20111018X11444
- Case number
- CEN12CA026
- 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: 40a4a9ae0d42996e7a4d4c625c6e2c120cc455ba87d1941821e874153350fab8; retrieved 2026-09-15T16:51:41.300Z.