MIA96FA035 · Aerospatiale TB-20
Aerospatiale TB-20 · Accident: loss of control in flight on approach
From I52 · Indianapolis, IN to Key Field / Meridian Regional Airport (MEI)
Event
- NTSB case
- MIA96FA035
- 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
- 3 · 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
Aerospatiale TB-20
- Aircraft type
- Aerospatiale TB-20
- 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
- N33AS
- Operator
- Unknown
- Onboard fatalities
- Unknown
- Route
- From I52 · Indianapolis, INTo Key Field / Meridian Regional Airport (MEI), MS
- 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
- 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
- Destroyed
Cause areas
- Pilot in command › Airspeed(vso), not maintained
Approximate · Coordinates as recorded by the NTSB; no uncertainty radius is established.
NTSB narrative
The pilot had been cleared for the ILS RWY 1 approach in instrument flight conditions. A short time later, the pilot contacted the control tower, provided his altitude, and asked for a heading. The tower controller provided the pilot with the published inbound heading for the approach which the pilot acknowledged. There were no other known recorded communications with the pilot. A witness observed the airplane in instrument flight conditions at about 100 feet with the landing gear down. The airplane made a steep turn to the north and continued northbound until it disappeared from view. The airplane wreckage was located the next day 4 miles south of the airport and west of the outer marker. The airplane had collided with trees in a 90-degree left bank, 45-degree nose-down attitude. Examination of the wreckage revealed no evidence of a precrash mechanical failure or malfunction.
Probable cause
the pilot's failure to maintain airspeed (VSO) while maneuvering during an ILS approach in instrument flight conditions. Factors related to the accident were: the pilot's failure to follow the published approach procedure, his failure to maintain a proper altitude, and the low ceiling.
Verbatim NTSB analysis and probable cause from the NTSB dataset
Sources
NTSB record MIA96FA035
- Event ID
- 20001207X05044
- Case number
- MIA96FA035
- 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: 8dfb75b1adbdf7591b5298c068f54f96586edc313520db3e1d9cad3d2043cb46; retrieved 2026-09-20T23:30:18.355Z.