CEN15FA362 · Zenair Ltd CH 2000
Zenair Ltd CH 2000 · Accident: loss of control in flight during initial climb
From McAllen Miller International Airport (MFE) to McAllen Miller International Airport (MFE)
Event
- NTSB case
- CEN15FA362
- 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
- 2 · all aircraft and ground
- Ground fatalities
- 0
- 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
Zenair Ltd CH 2000
- Aircraft type
- Zenair CH-2000
- 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
- N26ZA
- Operator
- Unknown
- Onboard fatalities
- Unknown
- Route
- From McAllen Miller International Airport (MFE), McAllen, TXTo McAllen Miller International Airport (MFE), McAllen, TX
- Aircraft age
- About 18 years (built 1997)
- 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
- Destroyed
Cause areas
- Aircraft › Aircraft oper/perf/capability
- Environmental issues › Conditions/weather/phenomena
- Personnel issues › Task performance
Approximate · Coordinates as recorded by the NTSB; no uncertainty radius is established.
NTSB narrative
According to communications with a tower air traffic controller, the flight instructor and student pilot planned on completing four or five takeoffs and landings. The first takeoff attempt was aborted for unknown reasons, and the airplane was taxied back to the beginning of the runway for another takeoff attempt. About eight minutes later, the airplane departed. The tower controller later stated that the made a right turn after departure; the airplane's airspeed appeared low when a wing dropped and the airplane descended straight down. Two other witnesses stated that the airplane appeared to be stopped in the air before it dropped. The airplane impacted in a nose-low and left-wing-low attitude. One propeller blade exhibited damage that was indicative of the propeller turning at impact. A postimpact fire ensued and consumed a majority of the airplane. A postaccident examination did not reveal any preimpact mechanical malfunctions or failures with the airframe or engine that would have precluded normal operation.
A gust front and rain shower were passing through the area about the time of the accident, and the wind conditions were changing. The recorded wind at the time of the accident was from the east at 19 knots, gusting to 25 knots. The gust front likely produced low-level wind shear across the region. The accident is consistent with an aerodynamic stall in gusting wind conditions, which resulted in a loss of control and impact with terrain.
A medical evaluation of the flight instructor revealed that he sustained fractures of both feet, which is indicative of him manipulating the rudder pedals during impact, thus he was likely the pilot flying at the time of the accident.
Probable cause
The flight instructor's loss of airplane control while departing in gusting wind conditions that were conducive to low-level wind shear.
Verbatim NTSB analysis and probable cause from the NTSB dataset
Sources
NTSB record CEN15FA362
- Event ID
- 20150817X20533
- Case number
- CEN15FA362
- 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: be8127f0383498c5508a2b46313bb86acd9da822f989c8f09e96f01e519e7017; retrieved 2026-09-14T21:28:42.187Z.