MIA99LA130 · Zemp AVID CATALINA AVID CATAL
Zemp AVID CATALINA AVID CATAL · Accident: airframe, component or system failure en route
From Avon Park Executive Airport (AVO) to an unrecorded destination
Event
- NTSB case
- MIA99LA130
- 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
Zemp AVID CATALINA AVID CATAL
- Aircraft type
- Zemp AVID CATALINA
- 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
- N9224T
- Operator
- Adrian M. Zemp · private individual
- Onboard fatalities
- Unknown
- Route
- From Avon Park Executive Airport (AVO), Avon Park, FLTo 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
- En route · cruise
- 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
- Airframe, component or system failure
- 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
- Exhaust system, manifold/pipe › Cracked
- Exhaust system, manifold/pipe › Separation
- Propeller system/accessories, blade › Separation
Approximate · Coordinates as recorded by the NTSB; no uncertainty radius is established.
NTSB narrative
The pilot reported that during cruise flight, at 1,000-feet agl, his experimental, pusher engine, hull configured amphibian sustained a propeller blade(s) separation and when he reduced power to alleviate the extreme vibration, the engine quit. The pilot's only option was to attempt an emergency landing to a clear spot in an abandoned orange grove. The aircraft collided with sand furrows and high vegetation sustaining heavy damage to the airframe. Examination of the wreckage revealed that 2 of the 3 composite propeller blades were missing as well as the engine's left/front exhaust pipe. All that remained of the missing exhaust pipe was its attaching hardware to its exhaust port and a short stub revealing a 360-degree circumferential crack.
Probable cause
The in-flight separation of one of the propeller blade's and one of the engine's exhaust pipes causing the engine to vibrate until it stopped running. A related factor was the unsuitable terrain for the forced landing.
Verbatim NTSB analysis and probable cause from the NTSB dataset
Sources
NTSB record MIA99LA130
- Event ID
- 20001205X00532
- Case number
- MIA99LA130
- 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: 68984ce65b1a935920daf33ad8d47558cc0ed2c42bf470deb053da5065f757aa; retrieved 2026-09-21T20:34:04.791Z.