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LAX99LA060 · Aegerter, Simon VELOCITY 173E-RG VELOCITY 1

29 Dec 1998 · San Diego, CA, United States

Aegerter, Simon VELOCITY 173E-RG VELOCITY 1 · Accident: loss of control on ground/water during landing

From Ryan Field (RYN) to Montgomery-Gibbs Executive Airport (MYF)

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Narrative check · The NTSB narrative appears to contradict this record's aircraft involved. Values are shown as recorded, not corrected; compare with the narrative.

Event

NTSB case
LAX99LA060
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

Aegerter, Simon VELOCITY 173E-RG VELOCITY 1 Possible conflict

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
N466MF
Onboard fatalities
Unknown
Route
From Ryan Field (RYN), Tucson, AZTo Montgomery-Gibbs Executive Airport (MYF)
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
Landing
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
Loss of control on ground/water
DamageDestroyed: beyond practical repair. Substantial: damage that affects the structure, performance or handling and normally needs major repair. Minor: less than that. Glossary
Substantial

Cause areas

  • Flt control syst, yoke/control stick › Undertorqued
  • Owner/pilot mechanic › Maintenance, modification, inadequate

Approximate · Coordinates as recorded by the NTSB; no uncertainty radius is established.

NTSB narrative

The pilot stated he had experienced insufficient pitch control on landing at Tucson, Arizona, prior to the accident. He reported that he 'found play in the elevator control,' and was advised over the telephone by Velocity Inc. to add washers or spacers to the rear of the torque tube to remove the play. With the aid of a local pilot in Tucson, he added the washers and spacers to the rear of the torque tube. The pilot further stated that upon attempting to flare at Montgomery Field, 'the nose would not come up.' The aircraft bounced, veered off the runway, skidded across a grass area, and collided tail first with a parked Cessna 340. According to the pilot, on January 2, 1999, builders from Velocity Inc. inspected the airplane, and found that 'the front bearing of the aileron torque tube had come loose, thus preventing a full elevator down deflection.'

Probable cause

The pilot's inadequate modification to the control systems, which resulted in a restricted elevator control.

Verbatim NTSB analysis and probable cause from the NTSB dataset

Sources

NTSB record LAX99LA060
Event ID
20001211X11586
Case number
LAX99LA060
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: 4ad7dc0ba434c641d338acfcff3f42037c02ef6b72e00560b15d9baa30aa3086; retrieved 2026-09-22T16:06:06.479Z.