CEN19FA028 · North American P51 D
North American P51 D · Accident: loss of control in flight while maneuvering
From Gillespie County Airport (T82) to Gillespie County Airport (T82)
Event
- NTSB case
- CEN19FA028
- 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 P51 D
- Aircraft type
- North American P51
- 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
- N4132A
- Operator
- Unknown
- Onboard fatalities
- Unknown
- Route
- From Gillespie County Airport (T82), Fredericksburg, TXTo Gillespie County Airport (T82), Fredericksburg, TX
- Aircraft age
- About 74 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 · aerobatics
- 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
- Personnel issues › Action/decision
- Personnel issues › Task performance
Approximate · Coordinates as recorded by the NTSB; no uncertainty radius is established.
NTSB narrative
The commercial pilot was participating in a World War II educational reenactment program with a passenger onboard. The purpose of the flight was to perform 4 to 5 passes in front of an amphitheater where the reenactment was being conducted. Witnesses at the amphitheater stated that the airplane performed a low pass before entering a climb. The airplane then entered a turn followed by a steep descent from which it did not recover before disappearing from view behind trees. Although the pilot held an authorization to fly the accident airplane at the time of the accident, he had a history of failed check rides, airspace violations, and enforcement actions. In each instance, the pilot's certificate was issued or reinstated upon reexamination.
The airplane impacted the ground in a near-vertical attitude. The propeller blades exhibited abrasions and leading-edge gouges consistent with the engine producing power at impact. All observed flight control separations exhibited features consistent with overload. No preimpact anomalies with the engine or airframe were found. Toxicology testing detected ethanol in specimens from the pilot consistent with postmortem production. Although the pilot had a history of coronary artery disease, there was no evidence that this condition contributed to the accident.
The accident pilot ran a charity that provided flights in his warbird airplane to veterans; he typically participated in the reenactment program with a veteran seated in the rear seat of his airplane. The director of the educational program stated that, in a pre-performance briefing on the day of the accident, the pilot was reminded of "all pertinent [Federal Aviation Administration] requirements," including that the fly-by be conducted no lower than 1,000 ft above ground level.
Given the available information, the pilot most likely performed a low-level maneuver with a passenger on board and was unable to recover from that maneuver before impacting terrain.
Probable cause
The pilot's decision to perform a low-level maneuver at an altitude where he was unable to recover the airplane before impacting terrain.
Verbatim NTSB analysis and probable cause from the NTSB dataset
Sources
NTSB record CEN19FA028
- Event ID
- 20181117X84920
- Case number
- CEN19FA028
- 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: 02bfb71899cd807f6e6af69fcda5676c7e2be46699fbca37c0b97d3e308340ab; retrieved 2026-09-15T06:51:02.899Z.