IAD00FA044 · Kurzenburger Stuka JU-87
Kurzenburger Stuka JU-87 · Accident: loss of control in flight during initial climb
From Burhans Memorial Airport (3MD0) to an unrecorded destination
Event
- NTSB case
- IAD00FA044
- 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
Kurzenburger Stuka JU-87
- Aircraft type
- Kurzenburger Stuka JU-87
- 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
- N87DK
- Operator
- Unknown
- Onboard fatalities
- Unknown
- Route
- From Burhans Memorial Airport (3MD0), IJAMSVILLE, MDTo 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
- Initial climb
- 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 in flight
- 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
- Stall/spin
- 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
- Pilot in command › Aircraft control, not obtained/maintained
Approximate · Coordinates as recorded by the NTSB; no uncertainty radius is established.
NTSB narrative
The pilot departed on his first flight in the recently purchased home-built airplane, and crashed into trees and terrain shortly after takeoff. According to his wife, he had never been in the airplane while it was running, and he was only supposed to taxi the airplane and then return it to its hangar. The pilot's wife, son, and witnesses described the wings 'rocking' and the nose pitching up and down throughout the brief flight. According to one witness, 'It just seemed like he couldn't control it. Doggone, he didn't have much control of that thing on Friday. The engine sure seemed alright, he just didn't seem to have control of that damn airplane.' The pilot who delivered the airplane to the pilot and his son said the airplane experienced a pronounced break to the left when stalled. The pilot's exact flight experience could not be determined due to sporadic entries in multiple logbooks. The pilot's most recently documented biennial flight review was 2 years and 6 months prior to the accident. Examination of the wreckage revealed no mechanical anomalies and several pieces of angular cut wood, approximately 4 inches in diameter, were found around and beneath the wreckage. According to FAA advisor circular 20-27D: '...FAA inspections of amateur-built aircraft have been limited to ensuring the use of acceptable workmanship methods, techniques, practices, and issuing operating limitations necessary to protect persons and property not involved in this activity.'
Probable cause
The pilot's failure to obtain/maintain aircraft control after takeoff.
Verbatim NTSB analysis and probable cause from the NTSB dataset
Sources
NTSB record IAD00FA044
- Event ID
- 20001212X21017
- Case number
- IAD00FA044
- 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: d7eeb9e8cf05dd0282247f407dc780b29194aec93d83280780a1685414a40791; retrieved 2026-09-20T21:12:21.321Z.