WPR16FA012 · Bucker Jungmeister BU 133 C
Bucker Jungmeister BU 133 C · Accident: loss of control in flight during initial climb
From Missoula Montana Airport (MSO) to an unrecorded destination
Event
- NTSB case
- WPR16FA012
- 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
- 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
Bucker Jungmeister BU 133 C
- Aircraft type
- Bucker Jungmeister BU-133
- 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
- N1940J
- Operator
- Unknown
- Onboard fatalities
- Unknown
- Route
- From Missoula Montana Airport (MSO), Missoula, MTTo not recorded
- Aircraft age
- About 75 years (built 1940)
- 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
- 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
- Destroyed
Cause areas
- Aircraft › Aircraft oper/perf/capability
- Personnel issues › Task performance
Approximate · Coordinates from the NTSB case API, which marks them as estimated or does not say; no uncertainty radius is established.
NTSB narrative
The airline transport pilot purchased the airplane the day before the accident and was flying it across the country to his home airport. After landing at the accident airport, the pilot spoke on the telephone to a mechanic familiar with the airplane. The pilot reported to the mechanic that, after both of his earlier refueling stops, during the take climb, fuel had entered the cockpit, but after flying for a while, it stopped. The pilot stated that someone was helping him inspect the fuel system, but they were not able to find anything wrong. The mechanic stated that it sounded like a fuel venting problem and recommended that the pilot not fly the airplane until the issue was resolved. The pilot told the mechanic that he needed to get the airplane home and said that he was going to depart with all electrical power off.
On the initial takeoff climb, witnesses saw the airplane enter a steep right turn; this was consistent with the pilot attempting to return to the runway. After turning about 180°, the airplane stalled, entered a spin, and descended to ground impact. Upon impact, a fire erupted, which consumed most of the airplane.
Although the pilot had told the mechanic that he had someone help him inspect the fuel system, no one was identified at the accident airport who reported helping the pilot inspect the fuel system or seeing the pilot or anyone else perform such an inspection. Therefore, it is likely that the pilot experienced the same fuel leakage problem on the accident takeoff that he had experienced after his previous refueling stops. Extensive postcrash fire damage to the fuel system prevented determination of the source of the fuel leak. The fuel selector was found in the "off" position.
Because the pilot choses to take off with no electrical power, he was unable to communicate the reason for his turn to tower controllers. It is likely that the pilot was distracted by fuel entering the cockpit and failed to maintain adequate airspeed as he was returning to the airport to rectify the problem, which resulted in the airplane exceeding its critical angle of attack and an aerodynamic stall/spin.
Toxicology testing identified 10% carbon monoxide in the pilot's specimens. This was likely due to the postcrash fire.
Probable cause
The pilot’s failure to maintain adequate airspeed and his exceedance of the airplane’s critical angle of attack while executing a return to the runway after takeoff, which resulted in an aerodynamic stall/spin. Contributing to the accident was the pilot’s decision to take off with a known mechanical problem.
Verbatim NTSB analysis and probable cause from the NTSB dataset
Sources
NTSB record WPR16FA012
- Event ID
- 20151014X92113
- Case number
- WPR16FA012
- 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, coordinates. 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: 592a511f2339e5c277bcd9e1fd651e026104260bcf312ca6ecb6c0455bef8495; retrieved 2026-09-14T21:32:45.127Z.