MIA94FA089 · Piper J3C
Piper J3C · Accident: loss of control in flight en route
Event
- NTSB case
- MIA94FA089
- 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
- 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
Piper J3C
- Aircraft type
- Piper J3
- 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
- N35112
- Operator
- Unknown
- Onboard fatalities
- Unknown
- Route
- From not recordedTo 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 · climb to 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
- Loss of control in flight
- Also codedOther events the NTSB coded in the sequence, such as a wire strike after a loss of power. Flight Findings uses them for its kinds of event. Glossary
- Stall/spin
- 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
- Pilot in command › Airspeed(vs), not maintained
- Pilot in command › Elevator trim, excessive
Approximate · Coordinates as recorded by the NTSB; no uncertainty radius is established.
NTSB narrative
THE FLIGHT WAS OBSERVED TO CLIMB TO THE NORTH WITH A BANNER IN TOW. THE FLIGHT TURNED TOWARD THE WEST AT ABOUT 300 FEET ABOVE GROUND AND APPEARED TO ALMOST STOP IN THE AIR. THE LEFT WING DROPPED AND THE AIRCRAFT ENTERED A SPIN TO THE LEFT. THE ENGINE NOISE CEASED AND THE AIRCRAFT SPUN UNTIL GROUND IMPACT. EXAMINATION OF THE AIRCRAFT STRUCTURE, FLIGHT CONTROL SYSTEMS, AND ENGINE REVEALED NO EVIDENCE TO INDICATE PRECRASH FAILURE OR MALFUNCTION. THE PILOT HAD 437 TOTAL FLIGHT HOURS WITH 168 HOURS IN PIPER J-3 AIRCRAFT. SHE HAD 146 FLIGHT HOURS TOWING BANNERS. THE PILOT HAD BEEN COUNSELED BY COMPANY PERSONNEL ON THREE OCCASIONS FOR ALLOWING THE AIRCRAFT TO GET TOO SLOW AFTER BANNER PICKUP AND FOR PERFORMING UNCOORDINATED TURNS AT SLOW SPEED AFTER BANNER PICKUP. AFTER THE ACCIDENT THE ELEVATOR TRIM WAS FOUND 1 DEGREE FROM THE FULL NOSE UP POSITION. COMPANY PERSONNEL STATED THAT A SLIGHT NOSE UP TRIM IS USED FOR BANNER PICKUP AND NEAR FULL NOSE UP TRIM IS EXCESSIVE.
Probable cause
THE PILOT'S FAILURE TO MAINTAIN AIRSPEED DURING A CLIMBING TURN AFTER BANNER PICKUP AND HER USE OF EXCESSIVE AIRCRAFT NOSE UP TRIM WHICH RESULTED IN AN INADVERTENT STALL AND SPIN.
Verbatim NTSB analysis and probable cause from the NTSB dataset
Sources
NTSB record MIA94FA089
- Event ID
- 20001206X00945
- Case number
- MIA94FA089
- 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: dd07dcafe31c81bfb0854ffa5ccffb09c45b51762204ac555e69653928f521b6; retrieved 2026-09-21T00:13:43.127Z.