ERA13LA434 · Timothy J Cowper PITTS SPECIAL S-1E
Timothy J Cowper PITTS SPECIAL S-1E · Accident: loss of control in flight while maneuvering
From Plateau Sky Ranch Airport (1F2) to Plateau Sky Ranch Airport (1F2)
Event
- NTSB case
- ERA13LA434
- 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
Timothy J Cowper PITTS SPECIAL S-1E
- Aircraft type
- Timothy J Cowper PITTS SPECIAL S-1E
- 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
- N85AT
- Operator
- Cowper Timothy J
- Onboard fatalities
- Unknown
- Route
- From Plateau Sky Ranch Airport (1F2), Edinburg, NYTo Plateau Sky Ranch Airport (1F2), Edinburg, NY
- Aircraft age
- About 1 year (built 2012)
- 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
- 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
- Destroyed
Cause areas
- Aircraft › Aircraft oper/perf/capability
- 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
Witnesses reported that they observed the airplane maneuvering at low altitude after it departed from the airport. One witness recalled hearing normal engine noise followed by an increase in engine speed. When he looked in the direction of the airplane, he observed it in a nose-down bank. The airplane then disappeared behind a tree line and crashed. The wreckage was found in a wooded area about 1/2 mile south-southwest of the airport. The wreckage was confined to one area with no discernible linear wreckage path noted, which was consistent with an aerodynamic stall and loss of control. Most of the wreckage was consumed in a postcrash fire. Flight control continuity was established from the flight control surfaces to the cockpit. Examination of the airframe and engine revealed no anomalies that would have precluded normal operation.
Probable cause
The pilot’s failure to maintain adequate airspeed during low-altitude maneuvering, which resulted in the airplane exceeding its critical angle-of-attack and experiencing an aerodynamic stall.
Verbatim NTSB analysis and probable cause from the NTSB dataset
Sources
NTSB record ERA13LA434
- Event ID
- 20130929X12529
- Case number
- ERA13LA434
- 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: f35989107601df066d876dd74f7eb70fecca2ff135b2c59ddd62645a80e7c572; retrieved 2026-09-14T16:04:42.302Z.