ERA26FA166 · North American AT-6D
Osprey Aircraft North American AT-6D · Accident: loss of control in flight while maneuvering
From Williston Municipal Airport (X60) to an unrecorded destination
Event
- NTSB case
- ERA26FA166
- 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
- Ongoing
- API-reported fatalities
- 2 · all aircraft and ground
- Ground fatalities
- 0
- 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 AT-6D
- Aircraft type
- North American AT-6
- 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
- N29678
- Operator
- Osprey Aircraft
- Onboard fatalities
- Unknown
- Route
- From Williston Municipal Airport (X60), Williston, FLTo not recorded
- 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
- 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
No findings designated as a cause are recorded in the NTSB data yet.
Approximate · Coordinates from the NTSB case API, which marks them as estimated or does not say; no uncertainty radius is established.
NTSB narrative
On April 13, 2026, about 1536 eastern daylight time, a North American AT-6D, N29678, was destroyed when it was involved in an accident near Bronson, Florida. The two pilots were fatally injured. The airplane was operated as a Title 14 Code of Federal Regulations Part 91 instructional flight. The accident pilot was undergoing a formation flight “check-out” at the time of the accident. The accident airplane was the second airplane in a two-airplane formation flight. The flight departed Williston Regional Airport (X60), Williston, Florida, about 1510 and proceeded northwest at an altitude of about 3,000 ft msl. The pilot of the lead airplane reported that both airplanes completed a formation sequence and then began their return flight to X60, with the accident airplane in “extended trail formation,” about 1/2-mile behind the lead airplane. As the formation descended through about 2,700 ft msl, on a southerly heading, the lead airplane performed two 180° direction changes, then completed two circles that terminated in a 30° climb and a 30° bank attitude. The lead pilot observed the accident airplane in a nose high attitude as it banked right. The lead pilot then diverted his attention momentarily to clear his turn, then subsequently observed the accident airplane in a steep, 80° nose-down decent. As the accident airplane continued to descend below approximately 1,000 ft msl, it rolled right about 3-1/2 times. The lead pilot reported that the accident airplane appeared to be recovering from the decent just before it impacted terrain, which was followed by a postimpact fire. Examination of the accident site revealed that the wreckage was highly fragmented. All major components of the airplane were accounted for at the accident site. The airplane’s engine, wings, and horizontal stabilizers were impact separated and located in the debris field. Flight control continuity was confirmed to all flight control surfaces through control cables that were fractured consistent with overload separations. The wreckage was retained for further examination.
Verbatim NTSB factual narrative from the NTSB dataset
Sources
NTSB record ERA26FA166
- Event ID
- 20260413202814
- Case number
- ERA26FA166
- 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: c9960a46b4d32f783c7e11ee53c8809d571206d2be8415803894668d56325057; retrieved 2026-09-15T09:15:02.773Z.