MIA94LA146 · MID State Ultra Light CHALLENGER II CHALLENGER
MID State Ultra Light CHALLENGER II CHALLENGER · Accident: loss of control in flight during landing
From HOLIDAY ISLE, FL (no airport) to an unrecorded destination
Event
- NTSB case
- MIA94LA146
- 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
MID State Ultra Light CHALLENGER II CHALLENGER
- Aircraft type
- Mid State Ultra Light CHALLENGER
- 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
- UNREG
- Operator
- Unknown
- Onboard fatalities
- Unknown
- Route
- From HOLIDAY ISLE, FL (no airport)To 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
- Landing
- 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
- 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 › Airspeed(vs), not maintained
Approximate · Coordinates as recorded by the NTSB; no uncertainty radius is established.
NTSB narrative
THE PILOT STATED HE WAS AT 1,200 FEET AGL FLYING TOWARDS THE COASTLINE FROM THE EAST, AND HE ENCOUNTERED TURBULENT AIR CONDITIONS OVER THE EDGE OF THE LAND MASS. THE AIRPLANE ROLLED TO THE LEFT AND THE NOSE PITCHED DOWN. HE PUSHED THE CONTROL STICK FORWARD, AND APPLIED RIGHT AILERON AND RUDDER. HE REGAINED CONTROL OF THE AIRPLANE AT ABOUT 600 FEET AND CIRCLED BACK FOR LANDING. WHILE ON FINAL APPROACH FOR LANDING AT ABOUT 75 TO 150 FEET AGL OVER THE SAME LAND MASS, THE AIRPLANE ROLLED TO THE LEFT AND THE NOSE PITCHED DOWN. HE ATTEMPTED THE SAME RECOVERY PROCEDURE AS BEFORE WITHOUT SUCCESS. THE AIRPLANE COLLIDED WITH THE WATER IN A NOSE-DOWN ATTITUDE. HE STATED HE COULD NOT REMEMBER WHAT HIS AIRSPEED WAS BEFORE THE AIRPLANE ROLLED TO THE LEFT, AND THAT HE HAD NOT DETERMINED THE NEW STALL SPEED FOR THE AIRPLANE AFTER THE INSTALLATION OF THE FLOAT KIT. HE FURTHER STATED THERE WAS NO EVIDENCE OF A PRECRASH MECHANICAL FAILURE OF THE AIRFRAME, FLIGHT CONTROLS, ENGINE ASSEMBLY OR ACCESSORIES.
Probable cause
The pilot-in-command's failure to maintain airspeed (VS) while landing in turbulent air resulting in an in-flight loss of control (inadvertent stall), and subsequent in-flight collision with terrain.
Verbatim NTSB analysis and probable cause from the NTSB dataset
Sources
NTSB record MIA94LA146
- Event ID
- 20001206X01351
- Case number
- MIA94LA146
- 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: 01a0bf82b8f0161c2efb3e4ce1a0af12a5bd50410982f32072e043fe6039161d; retrieved 2026-09-23T01:06:00.618Z.