NYC98FA129 · Hawker Aircraft Ltd. HUNTER T MK 8 HUNTER T M
Hawker Aircraft Ltd. HUNTER T MK 8 HUNTER T M · Accident: total loss of engine power (non-mechanical) on approach
From Manchester-Boston Regional Airport (MHT) to an unrecorded destination
Event
- NTSB case
- NYC98FA129
- 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
- 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
Hawker Aircraft Ltd. HUNTER T MK 8 HUNTER T M
- Aircraft type
- Hawker HUNTER T MK 8
- 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
- N745WT
- Operator
- Edward C. Stead · private individual
- Onboard fatalities
- Unknown
- Route
- From Manchester-Boston Regional Airport (MHT)To 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
- Approach
- First occurrenceThe 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
- Total loss of engine power (non-mechanical)
- Also codedOther events the NTSB coded in the sequence, such as a wire strike after a loss of power. Flight Findings uses them for its kinds of event. Glossary
- Fuel exhaustion
- 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
- Engine instruments, fuel quantity gage › False indication
- Fluid, fuel › Exhaustion
Approximate · Estimated position: the centre of Manchester, NH, the place the record names. Not the accident site.
NTSB narrative
The vintage ex-military jet was on an airworthiness test flight after a 12-year rebuilding process. Thirty-five minutes into the flight, and while on approach to an airport, the pilot announced over the radio that he wanted to conduct multiple landings. A little over 2 minutes later, he stated that the airplane would make a full stop, and 7 seconds after that, the pilot reported that he would have to eject. The engine had flamed out, but the pilot stayed with airplane until it cleared a crowded parking lot. The pilot did not survive the low trajectory ejection. Post-accident analysis revealed that one fuel gauge was frozen around 575 pounds, while the other had a needle slap mark at 740 pounds. All four fuselage fuel tanks were found empty, while both inboard wing tanks contained some fuel. The amount of fuel in the wing tanks at the time of the accident was undetermined due to tank leakage from the impact.
Probable cause
Fuel exhaustion, resulting from the pilot's reliance on an inaccurate fuel quantity indicating system. A factor in the pilot's death was his intentional delay of the ejection sequence in order to avoid people and property on the ground.
Verbatim NTSB analysis and probable cause from the NTSB dataset
Sources
NTSB record NYC98FA129
- Event ID
- 20001211X10396
- Case number
- NYC98FA129
- Dataset
- historical-pre2008
- Source SHA-256
- 89e2df6d848e7ab3b42e7d7c7a03ff403303057a26ca04c95b3ea67201c3ce74
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. 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: 3850d0f1441dc7a770b5dec22d911248250a7c90779c5cd45db9b5e810f84a4c; retrieved 2026-09-20T22:32:20.489Z.