- Date
- March 4, 1988, 07:10 local (12:10 UTC)
- Place
- Merritt Island, FL
- Injuries
- 1 serious
- Damage
- Substantial damage
- Phase of flight
- Maneuvering
- Aircraft
- N128JMHunter Velocity
- Weather
- Visual (VMC) · Day
- Status
- Completed · report June 9, 1989
- Report
- Approved by Office Director
- FAA report
- 19880304049299A
- Case key
- 32197
From the NTSB’s public API. By law, NTSB reports can’t be used as evidence in lawsuits over the accident.
On this page
Sequence of events
NTSB’s coding before 2008: each occurrence and phase of flight, and the causes and factors under it. The codes are defined in NTSB’s coding manual.
Analysis
While checking the stall characteristics of a homebuilt acft, the acft descended in a stalled condition until crashing into a river. The plt was unable to lower the nose. Investigation revealed that he improperly positioned baffles in the fuel tanks resulting in an increase of 20 gallons. If the angle of attack were nose high fuel would shift aft resulting in an out of limit aft c.g. the fuselage had been improperly levelled resulting in a nose high attitude. As a result the position of the airfoil shaped tanks located fwd of each wing & bonded to the fuselage were improperly positioned. The fuel tanks are part of the wing & provide lift. This moved the center of lift fwd, & with the aft shifting of fuel resulted in the nose high descent. According to a plt who has flown a similarly designed acft, during flt testing it stalled & descended in the same attitude of the accident acft. Recovery occurred when he added and maintained full power.
Aircraft
- Registration
- N128JM
- Reported as
- Hunter Velocity
- Category
- Airplane, amateur-built
- Serial number
- DM048
- Airframe hours
- 1
- Engine
- Lycoming IO-360-C1E6, 200 horsepower, reciprocating
- Damage
- Substantial damage
- Flight
- Personal · Part 91
- Operator
- Neil W. Hunter
- Registered owner
- Jack A. Mason
- Departed
- COI · Merritt Island, FL
Matched to the registry by N-number and the event date; the registry’s history has gaps, so older matches can be wrong. Compare the reported make and model.
Flight crew
As NTSB recorded them. NTSB leaves out names.
- Role
- Pilot
- Age
- 59
- Certificates
- Commercial, Airline transport
- Airplane ratings
- Multi-engine land, Single-engine land
- Instrument ratings
- Airplane
- Medical
- Class 2, Valid Medical--w/ waivers/lim
- Seat
- Left
- Flight hours
- 11,069 total · 210 in this make and model · 10,000 as pilot in command
Weather
- Conditions
- Visual (VMC) · Day
- Wind
- 20° at 12 knots
- Visibility
- 3 statute miles
- Lowest ceiling
- 500 ft overcast
- Altimeter
- 30.00 inHg
- Observed at
- TIX, 12 nm away
FAA reports on this event · 1
The FAA’s own accident and incident reports, matched to the aircraft by N-number and date.