MIA98LA014 · Aerofab Inc. LAKE LA-250 LAKE LA-25
Elissar Technologies Aerofab Inc. LAKE LA-250 LAKE LA-25 · Accident: loss of engine power while maneuvering
From Fort Lauderdale Hollywood International Airport (FLL) to Key West International Airport (EYW)
Event
- NTSB case
- MIA98LA014
- 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
Aerofab Inc. LAKE LA-250 LAKE LA-25
- Aircraft type
- Aerofab LAKE LA-250
- 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
- N85HG
- Operator
- Elissar Technologies
- Onboard fatalities
- Unknown
- Route
- From Fort Lauderdale Hollywood International Airport (FLL), FT LAUDERDALE, FLTo Key West International Airport (EYW), Key West, 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
- 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 engine power
- 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
- Reason for occurrence undetermined
Approximate · Estimated position: the centre of Miami, FL, the place the record names. Not the accident site.
NTSB narrative
The pilot stated that his engine was running rough and losing power. He made a forced landing in water about 3 miles south of the shoreline. The pilot said that after the airplane touched down in the water, he began water taxing towards land. He further said that because darkness was near, he step-taxied toward land to arrive sooner. Due to insufficient power and fading light, he discontinued the step taxi. At some point during the taxi, one wing began riding lower than the other until the wing was wet, and the taxi speed became slower. Eventually, he reached land, where he moored the airplane. The pilot noted that the left break away sponson-pontoon broke away, and the airplane also sustained damage from the dock. The pilot had the airplane towed to a maintenance facility were the engine was examined. No reason was found for the loss of engine power.
Probable cause
loss of engine power for an undetermined reason(s), which resulted in a forced landing and subsequent encounter with rough water.
Verbatim NTSB analysis and probable cause from the NTSB dataset
Sources
NTSB record MIA98LA014
- Event ID
- 20001208X09083
- Case number
- MIA98LA014
- 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: d54b961e2200931109ab80c190e8c90f47ad9f29fe3668bbd9fb09db0e1a6c9e; retrieved 2026-09-22T18:14:31.314Z.