MIA94FA179 · Cessna 172XP
Cessna 172XP · Accident: in flight collision with object en route
From Brooksville–Tampa Bay Regional Airport (BKV) to Venice Municipal Airport (VNC)
Event
- NTSB case
- MIA94FA179
- 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
Cessna 172XP
- Aircraft type
- Cessna 172
- 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
- N2827V
- Operator
- White, Donald A. · private individual
- Onboard fatalities
- Unknown
- Route
- From Brooksville–Tampa Bay Regional Airport (BKV), Brooksville, FLTo Venice Municipal Airport (VNC), Venice, FL
- 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
- In flight collision with object
- 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
- Object › Bird(s)
- Pilot in command › Incapacitation
Approximate · Estimated position: the centre of Indian Shores, FL, the place the record names. Not the accident site.
NTSB narrative
THE AIRPLANE WAS OBSERVED TO BE FLYING ABOUT 200 FT ABOVE THE WATER ALONG THE BEACH. A BYSTANDER VIDEOTAPED THE AIRPLANE AS WHAT APPEARED TO BE A LARGE BIRD COLLIDED WITH THE AIRPLANE IN THE WINDSHIELD AREA. THE AIRPLANE ROLLED INVERTED AND IMPACTED THE WATER. THE VIDEOTAPE WAS COMPUTER ENHANCED BY THE SAFETY BOARD. TWO DISTINCT DARK OBJECTS APPEARED IN FRONT OF THE AIRPLANE JUST BEFORE THE AIRPLANE PITCHED UP AND ROLLED INVERTED. ONE OF THE OBJECTS APPEARS TO STRIKE THE AIRPLANE. THE VIDEOTAPE SHOWS NUMEROUS PELICANS IN FLIGHT AND ON THE SURFACE OF THE WATER PRIOR TO THE IMPACT. THE PILOT'S FACIAL INJURIES WERE CONSISTENT WITH A WINDSHIELD SHATTERING.
Probable cause
A BIRD COLLISION, WHICH RESULTED IN PILOT INCAPACITATION.
Verbatim NTSB analysis and probable cause from the NTSB dataset
Sources
NTSB record MIA94FA179
- Event ID
- 20001206X01801
- Case number
- MIA94FA179
- 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: 96b83d87c3d0df45e5975df225dde9ca1a6bb7e4a89a00b1183930ca2549bcdc; retrieved 2026-09-21T00:04:36.055Z.