FTW99LA034 · Stanton STAROS SA 260 STAROS SA
Stanton STAROS SA 260 STAROS SA · Accident: airframe, component or system failure while maneuvering
From 54R to an unrecorded destination
Event
- NTSB case
- FTW99LA034
- 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
- 0 · 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
Stanton STAROS SA 260 STAROS SA
- Aircraft type
- Stanton STAROS SA 260
- 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
- N540HC
- Operator
- Henry F. Coffeen III · private individual
- Onboard fatalities
- Unknown
- Route
- From 54RTo 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
- 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
- Airframe, component or system failure
- 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
- Fluid, fuel › Leak
- Reason for occurrence undetermined
Approximate · Coordinates as recorded by the NTSB; no uncertainty radius is established.
NTSB narrative
The amateur-built airplane impacted terrain following an emergency bailout by the pilot due to an in-flight fire which erupted during an aerobatic maneuver. The pilot stated that he was executing 'a half outside loop push from inverted with a full roll followed by a snap roll in horizontal flight at the completion of the half loop' and was approaching a near vertical attitude when he was 'splashed with a very significant amount of [fuel].' A fire erupted and the pilot exited the airplane. The pilot reported that he 'suspects a fuel line separated between the main tank and the header tank.' Witnesses reported that his parachute opened at about 250-300 feet AGL. The fuel line between the main fuel tank and the header tank was destroyed by fire. The fuel filler neck was examined at the NTSB Materials Laboratory for preexisting cracks around the fuel filer neck. No preexisting cracks were found.
Probable cause
The fuel leak for an undetermined reason which resulted in an in-flight fire.
Verbatim NTSB analysis and probable cause from the NTSB dataset
Sources
NTSB record FTW99LA034
- Event ID
- 20001211X11429
- Case number
- FTW99LA034
- 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: 19a9a2bd9aedf29e92f968d4718aa95d97fd8cda7c50968fd11b6b37639e3ce8; retrieved 2026-09-21T11:18:29.283Z.