MIA93LA011 · Hunter VELOCITY
Hunter VELOCITY · Accident: vortex turbulence encountered en route
From Apalachicola Regional Airport (AAF) to Merritt Island Airport (COI)
Event
- NTSB case
- MIA93LA011
- 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
Hunter VELOCITY
- Aircraft type
- Hunter VELOCITY
- 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
- N141NH
- Operator
- Hunter, Neil W. · private individual
- Onboard fatalities
- Unknown
- Route
- From Apalachicola Regional Airport (AAF), Apalachicola, FLTo Merritt Island Airport (COI), Cocoa, FL
- 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
- En route · descent
- 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
- Vortex turbulence encountered
- 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
- Wake turbulence › Encountered
Approximate · Coordinates as recorded by the NTSB; no uncertainty radius is established.
NTSB narrative
THE HOMEBUILT VELOCITY & A BOEING 727 WERE BOTH OPERATING IN THE TCA IN VMC WITH RADIO & RADAR CONTACT ESTABLISHED WITH ATC, AND BOTH WERE BEING ADVISED OF EACH OTHER'S POSITION AND HEADING. BOTH AIRPLANES WERE ON A SOUTHEASTERLY HEADING, WITH THE B-727 OVERTAKING THE HOMEBUILT HIGHER AND SLIGHTLY TO THE LEFT. THE B-727 REPORTED HAVING THE VELOCITY IN SIGHT, AND WAS INSTRUCTED TO MAINTAIN VISUAL SEPARATION AND CLEARED TO DESCEND. AT THE TIME THE B-727 PASSED OVER THE VELOCITY, IT WAS AT 10,000 FT AND THE VELOCITY HAD JUST STARTED A DESCENT FROM 9,500 FT. THE VELOCITY CONTINUED A SOUTHEASTERLY HEADING. APRX 3-1/2 MIN LATER THE VELOCITY PILOT BROADCASTED A MAYDAY THAT HE WAS OUT OF CONTROL. HE THEN SAID HE WAS UPSIDE DOWN. HIS LAST TRANSMISSION WAS '...I HIT THE PROP WASH THE VORTEX...' WAKE TURBULENCE HAZARDS, PILOT AWARENESS & AVOIDANCE PROCEDURES ARE DISCUSSED IN THE AIRMAN'S INFORMATION MANUAL.
Probable cause
AN ENCOUNTER WITH WAKE TURBULENCE FROM A BOEING 727.
Verbatim NTSB analysis and probable cause from the NTSB dataset
Sources
NTSB record MIA93LA011
- Event ID
- 20001211X15917
- Case number
- MIA93LA011
- 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: 73cf8c48b8c155cfed969904887af79bd996a776af7b5929330e10d0328e2717; retrieved 2026-09-21T00:50:49.835Z.