MIA98LA180 · Robert E. Bean WITTMAN TAILWIND W10 WITTMAN TA
Robert E. Bean WITTMAN TAILWIND W10 WITTMAN TA · Accident: in flight encounter with weather on approach
From 44J to an unrecorded destination
Event
- NTSB case
- MIA98LA180
- 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
Robert E. Bean WITTMAN TAILWIND W10 WITTMAN TA
- Aircraft type
- Robert E Bean WITTMAN TAILWIND W10
- 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
- N173RS
- Operator
- Sarah L. Bean · private individual
- Onboard fatalities
- Unknown
- Route
- From 44JTo 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
- Approach · VFR pattern final
- 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
- In flight encounter with weather
- 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 › Planned approach, poor
Approximate · Coordinates as recorded by the NTSB; no uncertainty radius is established.
NTSB narrative
The pilot stated that the approach to the runway, known to have turbulence during windy conditions as experienced, was normal. While on short final with 1/2 flaps extended, the airplane began an uncommanded descent, then touched down about 60 feet past the runway threshold. The main landing gear collapsed and the propeller contacted the runway. The pilot then applied power but damage to the propeller had occurred. The airplane then veered off the runway and came to rest upright. The pilot further stated that there was no engine or airframe failure or malfunction, and due to the known turbulence she should have planned to land farther down the runway.
Probable cause
The pilot's poorly planned approach for not planning the intended touchdown point farther down the runway to avoid an area of known turbulence caused by terrain. Contributing to the accident was the turbulence.
Verbatim NTSB analysis and probable cause from the NTSB dataset
Sources
NTSB record MIA98LA180
- Event ID
- 20001211X10384
- Case number
- MIA98LA180
- 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: 7b09b17aa84da5100965a22970cf77a812af69bbc4f0f6f9de984201f2e5d371; retrieved 2026-09-22T17:41:52.266Z.