CEN17FA270 · North American/Aero Classics P 51 D
Warbird Heritage Foundation North American/Aero Classics P 51 D · Accident: loss of control in flight while maneuvering
From Amelia Earhart Airport (K59) to Amelia Earhart Airport (K59)
Event
- NTSB case
- CEN17FA270
- 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
- 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
North American/Aero Classics P 51 D
- Aircraft type
- North American/aero Classics 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
- N251PW
- Operator
- Warbird Heritage Foundation
- Onboard fatalities
- Unknown
- Route
- From Amelia Earhart Airport (K59), Atchison, KSTo Amelia Earhart Airport (K59), Atchison, KS
- Aircraft age
- About 73 years (built 1944)
- 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
- 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
- Not determined › Not determined
- Personnel issues › Task performance
Approximate · Coordinates as recorded by the NTSB; no uncertainty radius is established.
NTSB narrative
The pilot and the pilot-certificated passenger departed on a local flight, and the airplane was seen performing aerobatics before the accident. A witness then saw the airplane fly low over the ground, pitch up at a steep angle, turn, descend, and impact the ground in a near vertical attitude. Ground scars and damage to the airplane were consistent with the airplane impacting trees with the right wing, and then the ground in a nose-low, wings-level attitude with a pitch in excess of 60° nose down. According to radar data, the airplane lost about 1,000 ft in altitude during the final 5 seconds of the flight; the rate of descent was about 12,000 ft per minute. The location of the accident was within 250 ft of the last known radar target.
The airplane wreckage was severely fragmented and all damage to the airframe, engine, propeller, and flight controls was consistent with a high-speed impact. Examination of the airframe, engine, and related systems revealed no evidence of any anomalies that would have precluded normal operations.
After performing in an air show the day before the accident, the pilot had agreed to take the pilot-certificated passenger for a ride in the airplane before he departed the area. The airplane was equipped with dual flight controls and it could not be determined who was manipulating the flight controls just before or at the time of the accident. The pilot's autopsy revealed evidence of previous damage to his heart tissue, and this placed him at risk of a sudden cardiac event such as a heart attack or dysrhythmia. Such an event would likely cause acute symptoms such as chest pain, shortness of breath, palpitations, or loss of consciousness, and sudden impairment or incapacitation could result. However, although such an event might explain the loss of control, it does not explain why the plane was flying at a low altitude. Because of the unknown flight circumstances just before the loss of control, it could not be determined whether the pilot's heart disease contributed to the accident.
Although toxicology test results for both occupants identified ethanol in some tissues, the levels varied widely and were negative on two tests for the pilot-certificated passenger. As a result, it is most likely that the identified ethanol was from sources other than ingestions.
Probable cause
The loss of airplane control while maneuvering at low altitude for reasons that could not be determined.
Verbatim NTSB analysis and probable cause from the NTSB dataset
Sources
NTSB record CEN17FA270
- Event ID
- 20170716X62357
- Case number
- CEN17FA270
- 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: e1f7b096a5be4888cd0f38b14cc28d41168ef2d9607809390e8914f8b303e69e; retrieved 2026-09-15T06:08:32.854Z.