ERA15FA076 · Titan TORNADO II
Titan TORNADO II · Accident: aerodynamic stall/spin while maneuvering
From Warrenton Fauquier Airport (HWY) to Warrenton Fauquier Airport (HWY)
Event
- NTSB case
- ERA15FA076
- 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
Titan TORNADO II
- Aircraft type
- 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
- N50402
- Operator
- Unknown
- Onboard fatalities
- Unknown
- Route
- From Warrenton Fauquier Airport (HWY), Warrenton, VATo Warrenton Fauquier Airport (HWY), Warrenton, VA
- Aircraft age
- About 19 years (built 1995)
- 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
- 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 sport pilot departed on a local flight, his third flight in the accident airplane. Review of radar data indicated that the flight maneuvered in the local area for about 13 minutes before the accident occurred. One witness stated that the airplane was flying level about 150 feet above ground level when the engine began to sound like it was "missing." He then stated that the airplane then began a series of three 360-degree, level right-hand turns while over a wooded area. Upon completion of the third turn, the engine noise stopped, and the airplane descended vertically into the trees below. Examination of the accident site indicated a relatively short debris path, consistent with a steep descent. The witness observations and the impact geometry are consistent with the pilot's failure to maintain adequate airspeed while maneuvering, resulting in the airplane exceeding its critical angle of attack and experiencing an aerodynamic stall.
The engine was successfully operated after the accident at power settings ranging from idle to full power. While the weather conditions around the time of the accident were conducive to the formation of carburetor icing at glide engine power settings, the airplane was maneuvering in level flight before the accident so the throttle was likely set above a glide power setting. Examination of the engine and fuel system revealed no evidence of pre-impact failure or malfunction; however, no definitive determination could be made regarding the engine's operational state at the time of impact.
Probable cause
The pilot’s failure to maintain airspeed while maneuvering at a low altitude, 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 ERA15FA076
- Event ID
- 20141214X73255
- Case number
- ERA15FA076
- 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: c3d48ef007369987700d0370f72208eb9889dc8e915a877748971b95d2a9ff59; retrieved 2026-09-14T17:29:45.365Z.