CEN17WA008 · North American P-51D
North American P-51D · Accident: loss of control in flight on approach
Event
- NTSB case
- CEN17WA008
- 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
- Unknown · led by another country; figures from NTSB notifications
- 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
- Unknown
- WeatherVisual meteorological conditions (VMC): good enough to fly by looking outside. Instrument conditions (IMC): cloud or low visibility, flying by instruments. Glossary
- Not recorded
North American P-51D
- Aircraft type
- North American P-51
- 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
- G-MSTG
- Operator
- Unknown
- Onboard fatalities
- Unknown
- Route
- From not recordedTo not recorded
- Aircraft age
- About 71 years (built 1945)
- 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
- Not recorded
- 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
- Approach · VFR go-around
- 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
No findings designated as a cause are recorded in the NTSB data yet.
Not plotted · Location withheld: coordinates are missing, conflicting, invalid, or have no accepted acquisition method. No substitute location has been invented.
NTSB narrative
This is preliminary information, subject to change, and may contain errors. The foreign authority was the source of this information.
On October 2, 2016, at 1438 Coordinated Universal Time (UTC), a North American P-51D, British registration G-MSTG, impacted an open field during a go-around near Hardwick Airfield, East Anglia, United Kingdom (U.K.). Of the two persons on board, one was fatally injured and the other was seriously injured. The airplane was substantially damaged. The registered owner and operator have yet to be determined. Visual meteorological conditions prevailed at the time of the accident. The flight originated from an unknown location at an unknown time, and was destined for East Anglia.
This investigation is under the jurisdiction and control of the Air Accident Investigation Branch (AAIB) of the United Kingdom. Under the provisions of Annex 13 of the Convention on International Civil Aviation as a State of Design, the United States has designated an accredited representative to participate in the investigation. Any further information may be obtained from:
AAIB
Farnborough House
Berkshire Copse Road
Aldershot, Hampshire
GU11 2HH, United Kingdom
Telephone: +44 (0) 1252 510300
Facsimile: +44 (0) 1252 376999
E-mail: investigations@aaib.gov.uk
Investigator-in-Charge
Mr. Philip Sleight
Telephone: +44 1252 510300
E-mail: psleight@aaib.gov.uk
This report is for informational purposes only and contains only information released by, or obtained from, the AAIB of the United Kingdom.
Verbatim NTSB factual narrative from the NTSB dataset
Sources
NTSB record CEN17WA008
- Event ID
- 20161004X02204
- Case number
- CEN17WA008
- 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.
- No bulk values were replaced by the NTSB case API.
- The date is the local date, which is the same as the UTC date the NTSB stores.
- API snapshot SHA-256: f3e10c2258ada4cdfaac0fdd7afb57d70a260b575ad970022c12a171f6f9f87a; retrieved 2026-09-14T22:00:59.089Z.