The National Transportation Safety Board (NTSB) is citing an inadvertent aerodynamic stall/spin as the cause of the accident resulting in the deaths of the pilot and passenger of an AT-6D Texan during EAA AirVenture 2023.
The accident in Oshkosh, Wisconsin, happened the morning of July 29 over Lake Winnebago.
The pilot was 30-year-old Devyn Reiley, who held a private pilot certificate with an instrument rating. Reiley, from New Braunfels, Texas, was the cofounder of the Texas Warbird Museum and the former general manager of Texas Aviation Academy. She was also the daughter of Bruce Collie, a former star player with the NFL’s San Francisco 49ers and a two-time Super Bowl champion.
READ MORE: NTSB Investigation Underway After T-6 Goes Down Near Oshkosh
According to people who knew Reiley, she had been fascinated with flight since childhood and was particularly inspired by the World War II Women Airforce Service Pilots (WASPs), so much so that she made her first solo in a Vultee BT-13 Valiant, an aircraft flown by the WASP, and wore an olive drab flight suit with a Fifinella patch like the one the WASP had on its uniforms.
Friends said it was Reiley’s plan to fly the BT-13 to aviation events to celebrate the WASPs.
At the time of the accident, Reiley had 687.8 hours, of which 33 hours were in an AT-6D.
According to the NTSB report, her logbook contained an entry for a one-hour checkout flight in the AT-6D dated May 26, 2023. However, the entry “did not specify maneuvers performed.”
History of the Flight
On the morning of July 29, Reiley and a friend, identified as 20-year-old Zachary Collie-Moreno, took off from Runway 27 at Wittman Regional Airport (KOSH) just before 9 a.m. CDT. There was no information indicating Collie-Moreno held a pilot certificate.
According to ADS-B flight track data, the aircraft headed east-northeast toward Lake Winnebago, which is located outside of the KOSH Class D airspace. The AT-6 climbed to an altitude of 3,900 feet and leveled off. The ADS-B indicated the airplane’s calibrated airspeed as approximately 110 mph as it reached level flight.
The aircraft then made a turn to the right, followed by one to the left. During the turns, the aircraft’s speed diminished to 87 mph. The aircraft entered a flat spin followed by a rapid descent from which it did not recover.
The NTSB report, citing information gleaned from the ADS-B, indicated that the airplane’s calculated load factor during the second turn reached about 1.8 G. The published 1 G stall speed (wings level) for the airplane with landing gear and flaps retracted was 67 mph at a loaded weight of 5,500 pounds.
“Based on the calculated load factor, the airplane’s accelerated stall speed at that weight would have been about 89 mph,” the report noted.
This is consistent with the aircraft entering an inadvertent accelerated stall and unrecoverable flat spin.
There were several witnesses to the accident. One was in a boat on the lake and reported seeing the aircraft in a flat spin all the way into the water. He said there was no sound coming from the engine.
The airplane broke into pieces when it hit the water, with the wreckage coming to rest 20 feet below the surface. The cause of death for the occupants was reported as “blunt force trauma.”
NTSB investigators removed the wreckage from the water and inspected it for reimpact anomalies and did not find any obvious preimpact issues that would have precluded normal operation. It was noted that the primary flight control system, including the aileron, elevator, and rudder, revealed breaks consistent with impact damage.
The complete NTSB report is available below:
