CHI92DEC04 · Tennessee Engineering & Manf Z-MAX
Tennessee Engineering & Manf Z-MAX · Accident: airframe, component or system failure while maneuvering
From M151 · Clinton, MI to an unrecorded destination
Event
- NTSB case
- CHI92DEC04
- 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
Tennessee Engineering & Manf Z-MAX
- Aircraft type
- Tennessee Engineering Manf Z-MAX
- 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
- UNREG
- Operator
- Charles e Baker III · private individual
- Onboard fatalities
- Unknown
- Route
- From M151 · Clinton, MITo 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
- 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
- Tree(s); Stall
- 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
- Flt control syst, rudder control cable/rod › Failure, total
- Pilot in command › Acft/equip, inadequate design
- Pilot in command › Pull-up, performed
Approximate · Coordinates as recorded by the NTSB; no uncertainty radius is established.
NTSB narrative
THE MID-WING CONFIGURED EXPERIMENTAL AIRPLANE WAS OBSERVED FLYING CLOSE TO THE RUNWAY SURFACE. WITNESSES REPORTED THE AIRPLANE EXECUTED A STEEP CLIMBING 360 DEGREE TURN TO THE RIGHT. THE AIRPLANE STALLED AT THE CONCLUSION OF THE TURN AND DESCENDED INTO TREES ADJACENT TO THE RUNWAY. AN ON-SCENE INVESTIGATION REVEALED THE BUILDER OF THE AIRPLANE WAS ALSO THE PILOT. THE BUILDER HAD DEVIATED FROM THE DESIGNER'S PLANS AND MODIFIED THE RUDDER CONTROL SYSTEM. THE RESULT OF THE MODIFICATION WAS A LEFT RUDDER CABLE FAILURE DUE TO CHAFING AND OVERLOAD. THE BUILDER HAD ALSO INSTALLED AN ENGINE WHICH HAD 25 HORSEPOWER (HP) MORE THAN ALLOWED BY THE DESIGNER. THE DESIGNER STATED AN AIRPLANE WITH 65 HP WOULD PERFORM TOO STEEP A CLIMB FOR THE AVERAGE PERSON. THIS, HE STATED, WOULD CAUSE THE PILOT TO LOSE REFERENCE WITH THE HORIZON DUE TO THE AIRPLANE'S MID-WING CONFIGURATION. THE DESIGNER ALSO STATED THE MID-WING CONFIGURATION DOES NOT BLOCK AIRFLOW OVER THE ELEVATOR UNLESS IN A STALL, AT WHICH POINT THE TURBULENT AIR WOULD PASS OVER THE ELEVATOR.
Probable cause
AN INADEQUATE DESIGN OF THE RUDDER CONTROL SYSTEM BY THE PILOT/BUILDER OF THE AIRPLANE, A PULLUP PERFORMED BY THE PILOT, AND A TOTAL FAILURE OF THE RUDDER FLIGHT CONTROL SYSTEM.
Verbatim NTSB analysis and probable cause from the NTSB dataset
Sources
NTSB record CHI92DEC04
- Event ID
- 20001211X15637
- Case number
- CHI92DEC04
- 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: 2620f9940f9c06680ade734c46cd339779755cd7fda8893200a56893e2cdb4ff; retrieved 2026-09-21T14:43:32.617Z.