MIA95FA023 · Piper PA-28-180
Piper PA-28-180 · Accident: loss of control in flight while maneuvering
From Treasure Coast International Airport (FPR) to Daytona Beach International Airport (DAB)
Event
- NTSB case
- MIA95FA023
- 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
- Instrument Meteorological Cond
Piper PA-28-180
- Aircraft type
- Piper PA-28
- 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
- N9420J
- Operator
- Unknown
- Onboard fatalities
- Unknown
- Route
- From Treasure Coast International Airport (FPR), FORT PIERCE, FLTo Daytona Beach International Airport (DAB), 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
- Maneuvering
- 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
- Destroyed
Cause areas
- Pilot in command › Spatial disorientation
Approximate · Coordinates as recorded by the NTSB; no uncertainty radius is established.
NTSB narrative
The pilot was cleared by ATC for an ILS approach in instrument flight conditions. ATC terminated the approach when the airplane was observed on radar below the minimum altitude for that segment of the approach and 'S' turning through the final approach course. The pilot was vectored and cleared for an ASR approach. The airplane was observed on radar turning through the final approach course, and the pilot was provided with heading corrections which were not acknowledged. The airplane continued turning through the approach course, and radar contact was lost. The pilot's last recorded instrument flight was on September 15, 1989, an his last recorded night flight was on February 18, 1989.
Probable cause
The pilot's failure to maintain aircraft control while maneuvering in instrument flight conditions during an instrument approach, resulting in the pilot becoming spatially disoriented, and a subsequent in-flight collision with terrain. Contributing to the accident was the pilot's lack of recent experience in instrument and night flight conditions.
Verbatim NTSB analysis and probable cause from the NTSB dataset
Sources
NTSB record MIA95FA023
- Event ID
- 20001206X02624
- Case number
- MIA95FA023
- 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: 4c93baa880aa9440d35eed672425a8b0269f2d915c969261262c5481f315fca0; retrieved 2026-09-20T23:56:04.944Z.