MIA96LA187 · Piper PA-23-250
L C e Piper PA-23-250 · Accident: total loss of engine power (non-mechanical) en route
From Albert Whitted Airport (SPG) to Lake Bird Heliport (FD06)
Event
- NTSB case
- MIA96LA187
- 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
- 0 · 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-23-250
- Aircraft type
- Piper PA-23
- 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
- N6819Y
- Operator
- L C e
- Onboard fatalities
- Unknown
- Route
- From Albert Whitted Airport (SPG)To Lake Bird Heliport (FD06), WATCHULA, 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
- En route · climb to cruise
- 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
- Total loss of engine power (non-mechanical)
- 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
- Fuel contamination
- 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
- Fluid, fuel › Contamination
Approximate · Coordinates as recorded by the NTSB; no uncertainty radius is established.
NTSB narrative
The pilot departed on a flight on the day after an annual inspection had been completed. After departing, he reported, the right engine was 'running rough.' The control tower cleared him for an emergency landing back at the airport. While returing, the pilot was unable to maintain altitude, and the flight impacted water about 1 mile south of the airport. According to the pilot's statement, he was flying westbound over water, when the right engine 'stopped.' He stated that he 'secured' the right engine, and about 1 minute later, the left engine 'stopped.' He 'secured' the left engine, and the airplane 'hit water.' The pilot stated that he was in the air about 15 minutes when the loss of engine power occurred. Examination of the right engine revealed, there was rusty water in the sediment bowl at the fire wall; rusty water and contamination were also found in the respective fuel servo screen. The left engine sediment bowl was found dry; the respective fuel servo screen was found with rust stains and contamination with 'trash' in the screen. The fuel selector valves operated without any discrepancies. No preimpact mechanical discrepancy was found with either engine.
Probable cause
a loss of engine power due to fuel contamination, which resulted in a forced landing (ditching) in water. Factors relating to the accident were: an inadquate annual inspection by maintenance personnel, and an inadequate preflight inspection by the pilot.
Verbatim NTSB analysis and probable cause from the NTSB dataset
Sources
NTSB record MIA96LA187
- Event ID
- 20001208X06317
- Case number
- MIA96LA187
- 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: d67fdf70105073af47b7ec19a1b2bc42e77665ce4c3247c083eb72e3e7e27e17; retrieved 2026-09-22T21:49:34.055Z.