CEN21FA230 · Sub-Sonex JSX-2
Sub-Sonex JSX-2 · Accident: loss of control in flight while maneuvering
From Shreveport Regional Airport (SHV) to an unrecorded destination
Event
- NTSB case
- CEN21FA230
- 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
- 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
- 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
Sub-Sonex JSX-2
- Aircraft type
- Sub Sonex JSX-2
- 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
- N465JC
- Operator
- Unknown
- Onboard fatalities
- Unknown
- Route
- From Shreveport Regional Airport (SHV), Shreveport, LATo not recorded
- Aircraft age
- About 4 years (built 2017)
- 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 · low-altitude flying
- 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
- Aircraft › Aircraft oper/perf/capability
- Personnel issues › Action/decision
- 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
Automatic dependent surveillance broadcast track data showed the airplane take off and shortly thereafter maneuver low-level over the lake until track data was lost. A witness reported that he and several others saw the airplane fly across the lake at an altitude of about 200 ft above the water. The witness reported that just before the accident he saw the airplane roll to the right until it was inverted and then it abruptly nosed down and impacted the water in a near vertical attitude. Another witness reported seeing the airplane performing a barrel roll over the lake during the previous week. The airplane's wreckage was recovered and examined. Airframe damage showed that the airplane impacted the water in a near-vertical, nose-low, right-wing-down attitude. Flight control continuity was confirmed, and the engine and engine control unit showed no preaccident malfunctions or failures that could have contributed to the accident.
Toxicology testing showed the pilot had used the potentially impairing drugs sertraline, bupropion, quetiapine, gabapentin, and pramipexole. However, is not possible to reliably predict the combined effects of these drugs or how they affected any impairment from underlying medical conditions the pilot had. In addition, the small amount of ethanol detected may have been produced after the pilot’s death.
Probable cause
The pilot’s failure to maintain clearance with the water while performing aerobatics, resulting in the airplane’s impact into a lake. Contributing was the pilot’s decision to perform aerobatics at low altitude.
Verbatim NTSB analysis and probable cause from the NTSB dataset
Sources
NTSB record CEN21FA230
- Event ID
- 20210523103128
- Case number
- CEN21FA230
- 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: 21a7c85583da77cf4798af4f5617e25729c9abeaa80b15161eb1714d76ac0056; retrieved 2026-09-15T07:28:43.727Z.