ERA22LA294 · Bucker BU-133
Bucker BU-133 · Accident: loss of control in flight during initial climb
Event
- NTSB case
- ERA22LA294
- 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
- Event fatalities
- Unknown
- 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
Bucker BU-133
- Aircraft type
- Bucker BU-133
- 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
- N1940H
- Operator
- Unknown
- Onboard fatalities
- Unknown
- Route
- From not recordedTo not recorded
- Aircraft age
- About 82 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 as recorded by the NTSB; no uncertainty radius is established.
NTSB narrative
Witnesses reported that, during takeoff, the airplane became airborne about 1,000 ft down the 5,000-ft-long runway and immediately pitched up to a nose-high attitude with little increase in altitude. The witnesses also reported that the engine ran smoothly during the entire event. As the airplane passed the departure end of the runway, it made a slight right turn, followed by a sharp turn to the left back toward the runway. During the left turn, the nose dropped, and the airplane impacted the ground past the end of the runway in a left-wing-low attitude. Examination of the airplane revealed no evidence of a preexisting mechanical malfunction or failure that would have precluded normal operation. Given the witness statements and the lack of mechanical anomalies, it is likely that the pilot exceeded the airplane’s critical angle of attack while attempting to return to the airport during the initial climb, which resulted in an aerodynamic stall, loss of control, and impact with terrain.
Probable cause
The pilot’s exceedance of the airplane’s critical angle of attack during the initial climb, which resulted in an aerodynamic stall during an attempted return to the runway.
Verbatim NTSB analysis and probable cause from the NTSB dataset
Sources
NTSB record ERA22LA294
- Event ID
- 20220629105387
- Case number
- ERA22LA294
- 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, 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: 0cf0fa74d116996bea4d1ad36ab8bc4a92608ff3ffb93c0d44b2c76bffdeb4c9; retrieved 2026-09-16T15:24:17.772Z.