CEN18FA147 · North American SNJ 5
North American SNJ 5 · Accident: aerodynamic stall/spin while maneuvering
From Kingsville Naval Air Station (NQI) to San Marcos Regional Airport (HYI)
Event
- NTSB case
- CEN18FA147
- 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 SNJ 5
- Aircraft type
- North American SNJ-5
- 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
- N12377
- Operator
- Unknown
- Onboard fatalities
- Unknown
- Route
- From Kingsville Naval Air Station (NQI), Kingsville, TXTo San Marcos Regional Airport (HYI), Austin, TX
- Aircraft age
- Not recorded
- 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
- 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
- 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
The private pilot, who was the owner of the vintage military trainer airplane, and a pilot-rated passenger were conducting a right turn just after takeoff, while still over the runway surface. Witnesses reported that the airplane's bank angle exceeded 90° and the highest altitude achieved was 200-300 ft. above ground level. The airplane then descended nose low and impacted a the ground less than 1 minute after takeoff. Radar data indicated that the airplane's average airspeed during the final portion of the flight was 87 mph and the bank angle reached about 56°, which would have resulted in a load factor of about 1.8g. Airplane performance data indicated that the accelerated stall speed at this load factor was about 95 mph, thus it is likely that, during the turn, the airplane exceeded its critical angle of attack and entered an accelerated stall at an altitude too low for the pilot to recover. Postaccident examination of the airplane did not reveal any anomalies that could be attributed to a preimpact mechanical deficiency.
The airplane was equipped with tandem seating and dual flight controls; the owner was seated in the front seat and the passenger was seated in the rear seat. The removable rear cockpit control stick was found outside of the airplane, and it could not be determined if the stick was installed at the time of the accident. No conclusive determination could be made as to which occupant was manipulating the controls during the accident sequence.
The private pilot was using decongestant and allergy medications. Toxicological testing identified diphenhydramine, a sedating antihistamine, at levels that were likely impairing; however, the extent to which this contributed to the accident could not be determined.
Probable cause
The pilot's failure to maintain airspeed during a steep turn after takeoff, resulting in an exceedance of the airplane's critical angle of attack and a subsequent accelerated stall at an altitude too low for recovery.
Verbatim NTSB analysis and probable cause from the NTSB dataset
Sources
NTSB record CEN18FA147
- Event ID
- 20180425X44849
- Case number
- CEN18FA147
- 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: ff4487adfd8af69ecf1d8ee7736086d110502ebfc22ce0d8293bb32961f531b4; retrieved 2026-09-15T06:39:35.116Z.