MIA97LA028 · North American T28B
North American T28B · Accident: in flight collision with object while maneuvering
From Olive Branch, MS to an unrecorded destination
Event
- NTSB case
- MIA97LA028
- 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
North American T28B
- Aircraft type
- North American T28
- 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
- N3178U
- Operator
- Unknown
- Onboard fatalities
- Unknown
- Route
- From Olive Branch, MSTo 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
- Destroyed
Cause areas
- Pilot in command › Altitude/clearance, misjudged
Approximate · Coordinates as recorded by the NTSB; no uncertainty radius is established.
NTSB narrative
A witness observed the airplane in aerobatic flight, above a private airstrip, which was less than a mile from the crash site. According to the witness, the airplane flew down the runway about 200 to 400 feet above the ground in straight and level flight. The witness said that he stepped inside for less then a minute, and when he returned outside, the airplane had crashed and was burning. This was a common area for this pilot and others to 'perform and practice low altitude maneuvers and aerobatics.' The area surrounding the accident site was level, but where the airplane first struck trees, the terrain was higher than most of the surrounding area. Based on witness accounts, there was evidence that the pilot miscalculated his altitude over the higher terrain, and that he was in 'inverted flight' before striking the trees. No discrepancies were found with the engine or airframe.
Probable cause
the pilot misjudged his altitude/clearance above trees on terrain that was higher than the surrounding terrain, while performing an aerobatic maneuver.
Verbatim NTSB analysis and probable cause from the NTSB dataset
Sources
NTSB record MIA97LA028
- Event ID
- 20001208X07096
- Case number
- MIA97LA028
- 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: dae27030603274482afd91abead043aa38d194e06f6a674ee7a0c5702894739d; retrieved 2026-09-20T23:06:22.733Z.