CEN20LA383 · Stearman A75N1(PT17) Undesignat
Stearman A75N1(PT17) Undesignat · Accident: loss of control in flight during initial climb
From Rusk County Airport (KRFI) to Rusk County Airport (KRFI)
Event
- NTSB case
- CEN20LA383
- 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
- 0 · 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
Stearman A75N1(PT17) Undesignat
- Aircraft type
- Stearman A75
- 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
- N373VU
- Operator
- Unknown
- Onboard fatalities
- Unknown
- Route
- From Rusk County Airport (KRFI), Henderson, TXTo Rusk County Airport (KRFI), Henderson, TX
- Aircraft age
- About 80 years (built 1940)
- 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
- Substantial
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
After about 2.5 hours of uneventful flight, the pilot landed the airplane for a fuel stop. About 20 minutes later, the pilot took off to continue the trip. Upon takeoff, shortly after rotation, the pilot noted that the airplane seemed to be “mushy,” even though the engine was “screaming,” as if it were producing power. He stated that the airplane “seemed to be hanging from the propeller.” The pilot initiated a left turn to return to the runway and decided to level off. After leveling off, the tail of the airplane impacted trees and the airplane went straight down. The passenger got a glimpse at the instruments, and the airspeed indicator showed about “sixty” when the airplane hit the trees. A witness observed the airplane take off and climb to about 150 feet. He thought that the engine appeared to lose power, but it was still running. He saw the airplane turn to the left and appeared to stall.
Examination of the airframe and engine did not reveal any pre-impact anomalies. One of the wooden propeller blades was shattered, consistent with rotation at impact. The wreckage was found amidst trees, nose down, consistent with a low inertia impact. It is likely that the pilot initiated a turn at too low an airspeed and the airplane stalled after takeoff.
Probable cause
The pilot’s failure to maintain proper airspeed, resulting in an aerodynamic stall after takeoff.
Verbatim NTSB analysis and probable cause from the NTSB dataset
Sources
NTSB record CEN20LA383
- Event ID
- 20200906X84456
- Case number
- CEN20LA383
- 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, cause areas. 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: 4b978adb1d2c5ae25b9b7713e004df5594d5f12e30ff44f93a022d4a78514639; retrieved 2026-09-16T12:59:44.069Z.