MIA97FA173 · Cessna 205
Skydive Cessna 205 · Accident: loss of control in flight while maneuvering
From X51 to an unrecorded destination
Event
- NTSB case
- MIA97FA173
- 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
- 6 · 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
Cessna 205
- Aircraft type
- Cessna 205
- 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
- N8214Z
- Operator
- Skydive
- Onboard fatalities
- Unknown
- Route
- From X51To 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
- 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/spin
- 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
- Faa(organization) › Insufficient standards/requirements, airman
- Pilot in command › Airspeed(vs), not maintained
- Pilot in command › Emergency procedure, not performed
- Pilot in command › Inadequate training(emergency procedure(s))
Approximate · Coordinates as recorded by the NTSB; no uncertainty radius is established.
NTSB narrative
A passenger-parachutist stated she had exited the cabin and was on the jump platform preparing to jump from about 3,500 feet when the left wing and nose dropped and the aircraft entered a spin to the left. After an unknown number of revolutions she jumped from the aircraft and deployed her chute. She observed the aircraft continue in a spin until ground impact. She stated the engine sounded normal prior to the aircraft entering the spin. She also stated that the aircraft appeared to be flying at a slower than normal speed as she exited the aircraft based on less wind forces acting on her. Postcrash examination of the aircraft structure, flight controls, engine, and propeller showed no evidence of precrash mechanical failure or malfunction. A review of the pilot's logbook and flight training records from the university where he attended showed no record of his having performed spins or spin recoveries in an aircraft. The records did show that he received ground instruction in spin entry and spin recovery techniques. FAA regulations require that a private or commercial pilot have received ground instruction in spin entry and spin recovery techniques but does not require the private or commercial pilot to have performed spin entry and spin recovery techniques in an aircraft.
Probable cause
The pilot-in-command's failure to maintain airspeed as he slowed for a parachutist to jump from the aircraft, and his failure to apply spin recovery emergency procedures prior to ground impact. Contributing to the accident was the pilot-in-command's lack of training in spin recovery emergency procedures in an aircraft, and the FAA's failure to require that a pilot demonstrate spin entry and spin recovery techniques in an aircraft.
Verbatim NTSB analysis and probable cause from the NTSB dataset
Sources
NTSB record MIA97FA173
- Event ID
- 20001208X07972
- Case number
- MIA97FA173
- 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: 8f93c087fe88363baa0034071ec67c1cf2e63672c83cd25d168f83922d147cd8; retrieved 2026-09-20T22:57:11.288Z.