MIA95FAMS1 · Piper PA-28-161
Piper PA-28-161 · Accident: missing aircraft
From Boca Raton Airport (BCT) to Boca Raton Airport (BCT)
Event
- NTSB case
- MIA95FAMS1
- 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 PA-28-161
- 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
- N5916V
- Operator
- Unknown
- Onboard fatalities
- Unknown
- Route
- From Boca Raton Airport (BCT), Boca Raton, FLTo Boca Raton Airport (BCT), 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
- Unknown
- 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
- Missing aircraft
- 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
- Reason for occurrence undetermined
Not plotted · Location withheld: coordinates are missing, conflicting, invalid, or have no accepted acquisition method. No substitute location has been invented.
NTSB narrative
THE PILOT SIGNED THE PILOT AUTHORIZATION FORM TO RENT THE AIRPLANE ON DECEMBER 25, 1994, ABOUT 1325. BEFORE DEPARTURE BOTH WING FUEL TANKS WERE FILLED AT THE REQUEST OF THE MISSING PILOT. THE TIME OF DEPARTURE HAS NOT BEEN DETERMINED AND THERE WAS NO EVIDENCE OF CONTACT WITH ANY FAA ATC FACILITY. A WITNESS REPORTED SEEING A LOW WING AIRPLANE ABOUT 1800 LOCAL 300-500 FEET ABOVE GROUND LEVEL FLYING WESTBOUND. HE REPORTED THAT THE ENGINE WAS SPUTTERING WHEN THE AIRPLANE FLEW OVER HIS HOUSE. THE MISSING AIRPLANE DID NOT RETURN TO THE DEPARTURE AIRPORT. VMC CONDITIONS EXISTED IN THE AREA AT THE TIME OF DEPARTURE. THE AIRPLANE WAS FLOWN ON A FLIGHT BEFORE THE MISSING FLIGHT AND THE PILOT REPORTED THAT THE ENGINE AND AIRPLANE OPERATED NORMALLY. THE ONLY DISCREPANCY NOTED WAS THAT THE NO. 1 COMMUNICATION RADIO WAS INOPERATIVE.
Probable cause
UNDETERMINED.
Verbatim NTSB analysis and probable cause from the NTSB dataset
Sources
NTSB record MIA95FAMS1
- Event ID
- 20001206X02764
- Case number
- MIA95FAMS1
- 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: 6e570710a2fcfb8396387c4db918ea98dfdada8502a0eef31336bed4ce77070d; retrieved 2026-09-20T23:54:27.233Z.