FLIGHT FINDINGSAVIATION OCCURRENCE MAP
Back to map

NYC08CA328 · Hood Junior Ace

30 Sept 2008 · Ashville, AL, United States

Hood Junior Ace · Accident: loss of control in flight en route

From Town & Country Airpark (3AL6) to Town & Country Airpark (3AL6)

Report a problem

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

Event

NTSB case
NYC08CA328
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
Unknown
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

Hood Junior Ace

Aircraft type
Hood JUNIOR ACE
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
N1012S
Operator
Unknown
Onboard fatalities
Unknown
Route Narrative disagrees
From Town & Country Airpark (3AL6), Branchville, ALTo Town & Country Airpark (3AL6), Brranchville, AL
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 · cruise
Defining eventThe 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
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

  • Aircraft › Aircraft oper/perf/capability
  • Personnel issues › Action/decision

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

NTSB narrative

The pilot of the amateur-built Junior Ace stated that the purpose of the personal flight was to fly in the local area for about 1 hour. The airplane was equipped with one centrally-mounted control stick, a two-place bench seat, and two sets of rudder pedals. About 20 minutes into the flight, the pilot turned the airplane to the left. When he attempted to turn to the right, the airplane yawed "uncontrollably" to the left. The pilot said he applied more right rudder in an attempt to control the left yaw, but the yaw increased. The pilot reported that he could not stop the yawing motion. He stated that, "it felt like the airplane was stalling and about to spin." A witness stated that the airplane’s wings rocked back and forth in a smooth, slow rocking motion. The pilot attempted to land in a field, and "flared high" above the ground. The airplane impacted the ground, and nosed over. The right main landing gear, right wing rear strut, and firewall were damaged. The pilot reported that there were no mechanical malfunctions of the airplane prior to the flight. He also stated that for this flight, he sat in the center of the bench seat, straddled the control stick, and was utilizing the "outboard rudder pedals." Examination of the wreckage by a Federal Aviation Administration inspector revealed all flight controls moved free, correct and had full travel.

Probable cause

The pilot's improper flare while landing. Contributing to the accident was the airplane's lack of yaw control as reported by the pilot.

Verbatim NTSB analysis and probable cause from the NTSB dataset

Sources

NTSB record NYC08CA328
Event ID
20081001X14444
Case number
NYC08CA328
Dataset
full-current
Source SHA-256
5cf380f0061817c0331a6b2d8cc7e0ee3a79bea469a1001dc5c10e56f35f5ab3
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: c5fc9d49685b09b3d1a451e03f390585fcc71057e952d0be35dbda070915ac83; retrieved 2026-09-15T10:16:10.317Z.