MIA97LA191 · Sherman Powell KITFOX IV
Sherman Powell KITFOX IV · Accident: loss of control on ground/water during takeoff
From JQF to an unrecorded destination
Event
- NTSB case
- MIA97LA191
- 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
Sherman Powell KITFOX IV
- Aircraft type
- Sherman Powell KITFOX
- 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
- N582KF
- Operator
- Unknown
- Onboard fatalities
- Unknown
- Route
- From JQFTo 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
- Takeoff · roll/run
- 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 on ground/water
- 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 › Directional control, not maintained
- Pilot in command › Preflight planning/preparation, poor
Approximate · Coordinates as recorded by the NTSB; no uncertainty radius is established.
NTSB narrative
The pilot-in-command who is a CFI was seated in the right front seat and the airplane owner who was previously tailwheel trained was seated in the left front seat. The PIC had never before the accident flight flown the accident make and model airplane. The airplane owner was required by insurance requirements to receive dual instruction. The owner performed the first takeoff with an uneventful full-stop landing. The second takeoff attempt was performed with the PIC manipulating the flight controls and the owner manipulating the throttle control. During the takeoff roll after the tail was raised the airplane began to yaw to the left. The PIC attempted to correct with right rudder and the airplane subsequently became airborne then touched down first with the right main landing gear followed by the right wing tip. The airplane ground looped and came to rest upright. The PIC stated that after the airplane came to rest the throttle was fully open. He further stated that the accident would not have occurred if he was manipulating the throttle control.
Probable cause
Failure of the pilot-in-command to maintain directional control and his poor preflight planning preparation for allowing the pilot rated passenger to manipulate the throttle control. Contributing to the accident was the pilots total lack of experience in make and model.
Verbatim NTSB analysis and probable cause from the NTSB dataset
Sources
NTSB record MIA97LA191
- Event ID
- 20001208X08196
- Case number
- MIA97LA191
- 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: b7e9315158aa5507c7d45568a35e274aab2739952bb97992caae3a1cb42f6759; retrieved 2026-09-22T19:25:28.520Z.