MIA99LA096 · Piper PA-23-250
Piper PA-23-250 · Accident: in flight encounter with weather during landing
From Treasure Coast International Airport (FPR) to Witham Field (SUA)
Event
- NTSB case
- MIA99LA096
- 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
- Charter & commuter
- 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
Piper PA-23-250
- Aircraft type
- Piper PA-23
- 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
- N2313Z
- Operator
- Unknown
- Onboard fatalities
- Unknown
- Route
- From Treasure Coast International Airport (FPR), Fort Pierce, FLTo Witham Field (SUA)
- 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 135: Air Taxi & Commuter
- 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
- Landing · flare/touchdown
- 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
- In flight encounter with weather
- 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 › Touchdown, inadequate
Approximate · Coordinates as recorded by the NTSB; no uncertainty radius is established.
NTSB narrative
The pilot was advised that the wind at an airport near his destination airport was 250 degrees at 15 knots. The first leg of the flight was turbulent but that flight and the next 2 flights were uneventful. During the final leg, the pilot contacted the Air Traffic Control Tower and was advised that the wind was from 250 degrees at 18 knots with gusts to 25 knots. The pilot reported that during the flare to land, the nose pitched up then the airplane landed first on the nose landing gear. The airplane then bounced and the pilot performed a go-around. The flight returned for landing, and the airplane was landed in a three point attitude. During the landing roll, the pilot heard a sound from the nose landing gear and noted that the nose landing gear tire was flat. The airplane was secured on the runway. Examination of the airplane by an FAA Airworthiness Inspector revealed that the left main wing spar was damaged, the top skin of the nose section was wrinkled, the balance weight for the nose landing gear tire was separated, and fuselage damage near the pilot's window was noted.
Probable cause
The inadequate touchdown resulting in a hard landing on the nose landing gear and subsequent structural damage.
Verbatim NTSB analysis and probable cause from the NTSB dataset
Sources
NTSB record MIA99LA096
- Event ID
- 20001205X00220
- Case number
- MIA99LA096
- 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: ead25525fe88946955c21af7efa886fbf9defb13cf119db56f77c6365675af66; retrieved 2026-09-18T16:59:01.299Z.