ATL96FA084 · Lake 4-200
Lake 4-200 · Accident: in flight collision with object while maneuvering
From Melbourne Orlando International Airport (MLB) to an unrecorded destination
Event
- NTSB case
- ATL96FA084
- 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
- Visual Meteorological Cond
Lake 4-200
- Aircraft type
- Lake 4
- 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
- N3027P
- Operator
- Unknown
- Onboard fatalities
- Unknown
- Route
- From Melbourne Orlando International Airport (MLB)To 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
- In flight collision with object
- 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
- Tree(s)
- DamageDestroyed: beyond practical repair. Substantial: damage that affects the structure, performance or handling and normally needs major repair. Minor: less than that. Glossary
- Substantial
Cause areas
- Pilot in command › Clearance, not maintained
Approximate · Coordinates as recorded by the NTSB; no uncertainty radius is established.
NTSB narrative
The operator stated that the training flight departed the airport enroute to a nearby lake. The purpose of the flight was for the dual student to complete three takeoffs and three landings in accordance with Part 61.57. Approximately 20 minutes into the flight, the airplane collided with trees on the western shore of the lake. According to the operator, the collision occurred in the vicinity of the 6,000 foot long landing and takeoff lanes used by seaplanes at the lake. There were no eyewitnesses to the accident. The aircraft wreckage was located at 1755 by another pilot flying near the accident site. Examination of the accident site disclosed that the airplane was 75 yards west of the tree line, and wreckage debris was scattered over an area 225 feet long and 75 feet wide. A 44 inch section of the outboard left wing panel, with the tip, was located in the immediate vicinity of the freshly broken trees. The examination of the airframe and engine assemblies failed to disclose a mechanical problem. The prevailing winds were out of the east at 15 knots; the wreckage path was orientated on a 300 degree magnetic heading.
Probable cause
The pilot's failure to maintain clearance from trees while maneuvering. A factor was the tailwind condition.
Verbatim NTSB analysis and probable cause from the NTSB dataset
Sources
NTSB record ATL96FA084
- Event ID
- 20001208X05694
- Case number
- ATL96FA084
- 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: fe7d40572f2ce9ae449ad875ac6a45093d731ca505301066c820d9d9a7e89828; retrieved 2026-09-20T23:21:52.889Z.