CHI83LA391 · Demeter HUMMER B
Demeter HUMMER B · Accident: total loss of engine power (mechanical failure) during initial climb
Event
- NTSB case
- CHI83LA391
- 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
Demeter HUMMER B
- Aircraft type
- Demeter HUMMER
- 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
- N77DE
- Operator
- Unknown
- Onboard fatalities
- Unknown
- Route
- From not recordedTo 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
- Total loss of engine power (mechanical 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
- Fuel starvation; Stall
- 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
- Pilot in command › Airspeed, not maintained
- Pilot in command › Stall, uncontrolled
Approximate · Coordinates as recorded by the NTSB; no uncertainty radius is established.
NTSB narrative
THE ULTRALIGHT ACFT CRASHED AFTER TAKEOFF WHEN THE ENGINE FAILED AT ABOUT 100 FT AGL. THE ACFT CLIMBED TO ABOUT 100 FT AGL AT A DISTANCE OF ABOUT 240 FT FROM THE END OF THE RWY. AT THIS POINT THE ENGINE QUIT AND THE PILOT STARTED A 180 DEGREE TURN TOWARD AN OPEN FIELD ADJACENT TO THE RWY. DURING THE TURN THE ACFT COLLIDED WITH THE GROUND. INVESTIGATION REVEALED A STEEL BALL IN THE FUEL FILTER CHECK VALVE BECAME JAMMED WHICH RESTRICTED FUEL FLOW TO THE ENGINE.
Verbatim NTSB analysis from the NTSB dataset
Sources
NTSB record CHI83LA391
- Event ID
- 20001214X44080
- Case number
- CHI83LA391
- 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: local date, investigation status. Values present in the bulk record are kept.
- The date is the local date; the NTSB stores the UTC date 1983-08-21.
- API snapshot SHA-256: 04048a20c9415d9d78b7a711aca9116c6095aad5e1298012c2a7e7c480f5bed9; retrieved 2026-09-23T21:30:49.123Z.