MIA98LA164 · Cessna 172P
Cessna 172P · Accident: airframe, component or system failure en route
From Pompano Beach Airpark (PMP) to Sarasota Bradenton International Airport (SRQ)
Event
- NTSB case
- MIA98LA164
- 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 172P
- Aircraft type
- Cessna 172
- 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
- N63012
- Operator
- Unknown
- Onboard fatalities
- Unknown
- Route
- From Pompano Beach Airpark (PMP), Pompano Beach, FLTo Sarasota Bradenton International Airport (SRQ), Sarasota, 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
- En route · cruise
- 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
- Pilot in command › In-flight planning/decision, inadequate
- Pilot in command › Unsuitable terrain or takeoff/landing/taxi area, selected
Approximate · Estimated position: the centre of Fort Myers, FL, the place the record names. Not the accident site.
NTSB narrative
The private pilot encountered problems with the aircraft's radios while on a cross country flight, and was unable to continue communications. After passing the airport to which she was previously vectored to by ATC, she elected to perform a precautionary landing in a field adjacent to an airstrip. During the flare, she realized that the field was rippled, but continued the landing. During the landing roll, she applied brakes and the airplane nosed over. Examination of the electrical system by an FAA inspector revealed a loose terminal at the toggle switch connection of the avionics buss. Prior to the accident, another pilot had noted that the avionics switch did not activate the radios, and the switch had to be manipulated several times before power was applied to the radios. According to the maintenance personnel, the switch was turned on and the problem was not duplicated. No other maintenance was performed.
Probable cause
The pilot's inadequate inflight decision and her selection of unsuitable terrain to conduct a precautionary landing.
Verbatim NTSB analysis and probable cause from the NTSB dataset
Sources
NTSB record MIA98LA164
- Event ID
- 20001211X10158
- Case number
- MIA98LA164
- 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: 225efc72c513d8a793aaa7475b550331c4cf38f38c119fcdc1cb304be5be7705; retrieved 2026-09-22T17:47:28.471Z.