MIA98LA092 · Cessna 188B
Cessna 188B · Accident: airframe, component or system failure while maneuvering
From Houston Municipal Airport (M44) to an unrecorded destination
Event
- NTSB case
- MIA98LA092
- 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
Cessna 188B
- Aircraft type
- Cessna 188
- 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
- N53382
- Operator
- Unknown
- Onboard fatalities
- Unknown
- Route
- From Houston Municipal Airport (M44), 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 137: Agricultural
- 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
- Airframe, component or system failure
- 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
- Flight control, aileron attachment › Corroded
- Flight control, aileron attachment › Disconnected
Approximate · Coordinates as recorded by the NTSB; no uncertainty radius is established.
NTSB narrative
The pilot stated he was at an altitude of about 150 to 200 feet when he made an aileron input, which was hard enough to cause fluid in the hopper tank to 'slosh' around. The airplane shuddered as if in a stall. He moved the control stick forward to increase airspeed, and the shutter continued. The airplane started to turn to the left. The pilot applied right aileron and rudder, then he visually checked the ailerons and observed that both were in the up position. He reduced power, and the left wing dropped. The pilot increased power and applied rudder to maintain aircraft control. The airplane continued in a slight left turn. While making a forced landing in an open field, the pilot reduced power, and the left wing dropped and collided with the ground. Examination of the airplane revealed that the left aileron control rod end fitting had become disconnected at the adjustment jam nut. The rod end had lost its flexibility, because of rust (corrosion), due to lack of attention and/or lubrication.
Probable cause
corrosion and subsequent disconnect of the left aileron control rod end fitting, which resulted in a loss of aileron (roll) control, a forced landing, and subsequent impact with the terrain. A factor related to the accident was: improper lubrication of the control rod.
Verbatim NTSB analysis and probable cause from the NTSB dataset
Sources
NTSB record MIA98LA092
- Event ID
- 20001211X09736
- Case number
- MIA98LA092
- 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: 743e4620cf863b1af959382e3ba384f77e7fd02e0510c31bc4a2c0bbb3d6678d; retrieved 2026-09-22T18:00:06.165Z.