ATL96FA051 · Sukhoi SU-31
Sukhoi SU-31 · Accident: airframe, component or system failure while maneuvering
Event
- NTSB case
- ATL96FA051
- 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
Sukhoi SU-31
- Aircraft type
- Sukhoi SU-31
- 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
- N31MX
- Operator
- Unknown
- Onboard fatalities
- Unknown
- Route
- From not recordedTo 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
- 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
- Airframe, component or system failure
- 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
- Manufacturer › Inadequate quality control
- Wing, spar › Delamination
Approximate · Estimated position: the centre of Immokalee, FL, the place the record names. Not the accident site.
NTSB narrative
The pilot was conducting a practice aerobatic flight, with two aerobatic pilots critiquing him from the ground. About ten minutes into the flight, the pilot initiated a pull toward the vertical with about 360 km/hr and 7 Gs, according to witnesses. This would have been well within the maximum airspeed and load specifications of 450 km/hr and 10 Gs, respectively. The right wing of the airplane separated during the pull up. The airplane entered a right roll and an uncontrolled descent, then it collided with the ground about 1 mile north of the airport. According to witnesses, the engine was developing power until impact, and the pilot did not announce any malfunctions or problems, prior to the wing failure. A postcrash ground fire consumed the fuselage. The unburned right wing was found about 3/4 mile east of the main wreckage. Testing of the wing spar was performed by the NTSB and MAK (Russian Investigative Authorities). Both agencies found numerous voids in the composite spar caps. The investigation revealed evidence that the curing process for the wing spar did not provide adequate vacuum pressure. There was evidence that during the curing process, the fibers separated from each other, which resulted in voids in the final composite material.
Probable cause
the manufacturer's improper composite curing process, which resulted in wing spar voids and subsequent failure of the wing during aerobatic flight.
Verbatim NTSB analysis and probable cause from the NTSB dataset
Sources
NTSB record ATL96FA051
- Event ID
- 20001208X05209
- Case number
- ATL96FA051
- 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: b85dddd5aff33ea1b5cfd95debc9aa178efb006cf6e65706c3f7a630563cbab5; retrieved 2026-09-20T23:25:29.994Z.