CEN12LA307 · Dial David L TITAN TORNADO II
Dial David L TITAN TORNADO II · Accident: loss of control in flight during initial climb
From Checotah, OK (no airport) to Checotah, OK (no airport)
Event
- NTSB case
- CEN12LA307
- 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
Dial David L TITAN TORNADO II
- Aircraft type
- Dial David 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
- N158TX
- Operator
- Unknown
- Onboard fatalities
- Unknown
- Route
- From Checotah, OK (no airport)To Checotah, OK (no airport)
- Aircraft age
- About 14 years (built 1998)
- 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
- 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
After takeoff, the airplane leveled off about 100 ft above ground level; accelerated; made a steep, nearly vertical, nose-up climb; and then sharply banked left. The airplane then suddenly stalled and "nose-dived" into the ground. A witness reported that, in the past, he and his neighbors had frequently seen the pilot perform this type of maneuver. One person reported that, in the past, the pilot seemed to enjoy "showing off" for people when he was flying.
Examination of the wreckage revealed no evidence of preimpact mechanical malfunctions or failures. Federal Aviation Administration records showed that the pilot did not hold a valid pilot certificate and that his previously issued student pilot certificate had expired in 2003. Toxicological testing detected low levels of methamphetamine in the pilot's cavity blood and urine, indicating that the pilot took some form of the drug before the crash. However, insufficient evidence was available to determine whether the drug had been medically prescribed or was being used recreationally. Thus, it could not be determined if the pilot's performance was impaired by either the drug, an underlying medical condition, or withdrawal symptoms at the time of the flight.
Probable cause
The noncertificated pilot's loss of airplane control while maneuvering during initial climb, which resulted in an aerodynamic stall and impact with terrain. Contributing to the accident was the pilot’s ostentatious display.
Verbatim NTSB analysis and probable cause from the NTSB dataset
Sources
NTSB record CEN12LA307
- Event ID
- 20120519X31312
- Case number
- CEN12LA307
- 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: d5eff4d6d5bd5c9e2c8bafcc794ed9ce1b7311dc21abe100dde315ec1722d60f; retrieved 2026-09-13T22:22:53.319Z.