MIA94LA109 · Piper PA-44-180
Piper PA-44-180 · Accident: loss of control in flight on approach
From X47 to X47
Event
- NTSB case
- MIA94LA109
- 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
Piper PA-44-180
- Aircraft type
- Piper PA-44
- 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
- N8303G
- Operator
- Unknown
- Onboard fatalities
- Unknown
- Route
- From X47To X47
- 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
- Approach · VFR go-around
- 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
- 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(cfi) › Aircraft control, not maintained
- Pilot in command(cfi) › Airspeed(vmc), not maintained
Approximate · Estimated position: the centre of Bunnell, FL, the place the record names. Not the accident site.
NTSB narrative
WHILE IN THE TRAFFIC PATTERN, THE INSTRUCTOR PILOT (CFI) MOVED THE LEFT ENGINE MIXTURE CONTROL TO THE CUTOFF POSITION. THE FLIGHT TURNED TO A LEFT CROSSWIND, DOWNWIND AND BASE. ON BASE LEG, THE CFI FEATHERED THE LEFT ENGINE PROPELLER AND THE FLIGHT TURNED ONTO FINAL APPROACH. DURING THE FINAL APPROACH, THE PILOT OF ANOTHER AIRPLANE IN THE TRAFFIC PATTERN ANNOUNCED ON THE SAME FREQUENCY THAT THE LANDING GEAR WAS NOT EXTENDED. THE STUDENT PILOT EXTENDED THE LANDING GEAR SELECTOR HANDLE, AND THE CFI APPLIED FULL POWER ON THE RIGHT ENGINE TO GO AROUND. THE PILOTS REPORTED THAT THE AIRPLANE BEGAN TO CLIMB, THEN IT ENTERED MINIMUM CONTROL SPEED (VMC) AND ROLLED TO THE LEFT. THE LEFT WING CONTACTED THE GROUND, AND THE AIRPLANE CAME TO REST UPRIGHT. A POST-CRASH EXAM OF THE AIRPLANE REVEALED THAT THE LANDING GEAR WARNING HORN OPERATED NORMALLY.
Probable cause
FAILURE OF THE INSTRUCTOR PILOT (CFI) TO MAINTAIN MINIMUM CONTROL SPEED (VMC) DURING THE GO-AROUND, WHICH RESULTED IN A LOSS OF CONTROL. A FACTOR RELATED TO THE ACCIDENT WAS: THE DELAY BY THE DUAL STUDENT TO EXTEND THE LANDING GEAR.
Verbatim NTSB analysis and probable cause from the NTSB dataset
Sources
NTSB record MIA94LA109
- Event ID
- 20001206X01149
- Case number
- MIA94LA109
- 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: e3d964ab2918c40194492cab6fa4224b2ffc8d50e1b4b7891d6ed6d800a8b2e8; retrieved 2026-09-23T01:12:46.610Z.