The silence in a cockpit during a stall test is heavy. It's a calculated, nervous kind of quiet where you’re intentionally pushing a multi-million dollar machine to its breaking point. But for the crew of a Mexican-registered Hawker 800XP circling over Michigan, that silence turned into a 30-second nightmare.
The aircraft, identified by the tail number XA-JMR, went down in a wooded area near Bath Township. It wasn't a routine flight. It wasn't a charter full of passengers. This was a post-maintenance test flight, the kind of "shakedown" run that most people never think about when they see a jet streaking across the sky. Three people were on board—two pilots and a maintenance rep. None of them survived.
Honestly, the details coming out of the NTSB’s recent investigation are enough to make any frequent flyer a bit uneasy.
The 30-Second Plunge: What the Data Shows
The Hawker took off from Battle Creek Executive Airport (BTL) after spending months on the ground for heavy maintenance at Duncan Aviation. We’re talking about deep-level stuff: wing inspections, TKS ice protection checks, and 4-year structural reviews.
Basically, when a plane undergoes that much surgery, you can’t just put it back into service. You have to prove it still flies the way the manual says it should.
At 5:08 p.m., the jet climbed out and requested a block altitude between 14,000 and 16,000 feet. This is standard for stall testing. You need "air under the wings" to recover if things get spicy. According to ADS-B tracking data, everything looked normal until it wasn't. Around 17:28 local time, the aircraft entered a sudden, violent descent.
It dropped from 14,775 feet to the ground in roughly 30 seconds.
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If you do the math, that is a terrifying rate of descent. Witnesses on the ground described seeing the jet in a "rapid, nose-down" attitude. It didn't glide. It didn't struggle for a few minutes. It simply fell out of the sky and impacted a secluded, marshy area east of downtown Bath.
The "Aileron Snatch" and the Hawker's Secret
The National Transportation Safety Board (NTSB) just issued an urgent safety recommendation because of this crash and another similar one involving a Hawker 900XP in Utah. It turns out, these specific jets—the Hawker 750, 800, and 900 series—have a bit of a "personality" when it comes to stalls.
The wing design is incredibly sensitive. If the leading edges are off by even a fraction of an inch during reinstallation, or if the "stall strips" aren't perfectly aligned, the plane won't stall straight.
Instead, it can experience what pilots call aileron snatch.
Imagine you’re pulling the nose up to slow down for a test. Suddenly, the air stops flowing smoothly over the wing. On most planes, the nose just drops. On these Hawkers, one wing can "quit" before the other. This causes an uncommanded roll. In some cases, the plane can roll 360 degrees or more, flipping completely over before the pilot even realizes the stall has started.
The NTSB noted that the "stick shaker" (the vibrating handle that warns a pilot a stall is coming) might not even go off before the plane rolls. You’re flying, and then a second later, you’re upside down and pointing at the dirt.
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Why Experience Matters (and Why it Failed Here)
There’s a massive debate happening in the aviation world right now about who should be doing these tests. The pilots on XA-JMR were "customer pilots." They were likely very experienced at flying the plane from A to B, but they weren't necessarily trained test pilots.
Testing a plane after maintenance is a different beast entirely.
The NTSB is now pushing the FAA and Textron Aviation to require specialized training for these stall series. The board pointed out that the flight characteristics of a "disturbed" Hawker wing can exceed the skills of a standard line pilot. It’s a harsh reality. You can have 10,000 hours in the air, but if the plane decides to do a barrel roll at 15,000 feet during a stall, you are in a situation most simulators never even touch.
The Logistics of a Tragedy
The crash site itself was a nightmare for first responders.
Bath Township police and fire crews couldn't even get four-wheel-drive trucks to the wreckage. It was too deep in the woods, too secluded. They actually had to use chainsaws to blaze a trail through the brush just to reach the site.
When they got there, they found a debris field that told a story of high-energy impact. The jet was mostly consumed by fire, except for the tail and pieces of the wing. It’s a grim scene that the NTSB investigators spent days combing through, recovering the Cockpit Voice Recorder (CVR) and sending it off to the lab in D.C.
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One detail that really sticks out: ATC audio captured one of the pilots saying "recover" in Spanish just before the end. It suggests they knew they were in trouble and were fighting the aircraft until the very last second.
What Owners and Operators Need to Do Now
If you own or operate a Hawker, or if you're just curious about how this affects the industry, the "wait and see" approach isn't an option anymore. The NTSB doesn't use the word "urgent" lightly.
- Review Maintenance Manuals: Ensure that every measurement on the wing leading edges is double and triple-checked against factory specs.
- Evaluate Pilot Training: Ask if your crew is truly prepared for an uncommanded roll during a stall. If they haven't done specific upset recovery training (UPRT) in a Hawker, they shouldn't be doing the post-maintenance tests.
- Hire Professional Test Pilots: Some companies are already moving toward hiring dedicated test pilots for these flights. It costs more, but as we saw in Michigan, the alternative is a price no one wants to pay.
The investigation into the Michigan plane crash is still technically "preliminary," but the pattern is clear. The industry is looking at a systemic issue with how these aircraft are tested after being opened up for repairs.
For the families in Mexico and the team at Duncan Aviation, the answers can't come fast enough. For everyone else, it’s a sobering reminder that even in 2026, with all our technology, the physics of flight still demands absolute, 100% precision.
The next step for anyone involved in Hawker operations is to download the NTSB's urgent safety recommendations and audit their flight testing protocols immediately. Don't assume your "standard" pilots are ready for a non-standard flight.