Cherokee Leasing Smith, Ted Aerostar AEROSTAR 600 AEROSTAR 6 accident
Smith, Ted Aerostar AEROSTAR 600 AEROSTAR 6 · Accident: loss of control in flight on approach
From Tallahassee International Airport (TLH) to an unrecorded destination
Event
- NTSB case
- DEN93FA031
- 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
- 1 · 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
- Charter & commuter
- WeatherVisual meteorological conditions (VMC): good enough to fly by looking outside. Instrument conditions (IMC): cloud or low visibility, flying by instruments. Glossary
- Instrument Meteorological Cond
Smith, Ted Aerostar AEROSTAR 600 AEROSTAR 6
- Aircraft type
- Smith Ted Aerostar AEROSTAR 600
- 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
- N90399
- Operator
- Cherokee Leasing
- Onboard fatalities
- Unknown
- Route
- From Tallahassee International Airport (TLH), Tallahassee, FLTo 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 135: Air Taxi & Commuter
- 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 base
- 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 in flight
- Also codedOther events the NTSB coded in the sequence, such as a wire strike after a loss of power. Flight Findings uses them for its kinds of event. Glossary
- Stall
- DamageDestroyed: beyond practical repair. Substantial: damage that affects the structure, performance or handling and normally needs major repair. Minor: less than that. Glossary
- Destroyed
Cause areas
- Pilot in command › Airspeed, not maintained
- Pilot in command › Planned approach, poor
Approximate · Coordinates as recorded by the NTSB; no uncertainty radius is established.
NTSB narrative
THE FLIGHT HAD BEEN CLEARED FOR THE VOR-A APPROACH, WITH INSTRUCTIONS TO CIRCLE TO A RIGHT DOWNWIND AND LAND ON RUNWAY 14. THE TOWER CONTROLLER OBSERVED THE AIRPLANE EMERGE FROM THE OVERCAST OVER RUNWAY 23 ABEAM THE VOR, THEN MAKE A TIGHT RIGHT TURN ONTO THE DOWNWIND LEG, PARALLEL TO RUNWAY 14 AND CLOSE IN. WHEN THE AIRPLANE WAS ABEAM THE RUNWAY 14 THRESHOLD, SHE OBSERVED THE NOSE PITCH UP, AND THE AIRPLANE DID WHAT SHE DESCRIBED AS A WING OVER. IT THEN DOVE AND IMPACTED THE RUNWAY NEAR THE THRESHOLD. THE CONTROLLER STATED THAT THE PILOT MADE THIS ROUND TRIP EVERY DAY, AND SHE HAD SEEN HIM DO THIS MANEUVER ON SEVERAL OCCASIONS.
Probable cause
THE PILOT'S POORLY PLANNED APPROACH TO THE RUNWAY FOLLOWING AN INSTRUMENT APPROACH RESULTING IN A LOSS OF CONTROL.
Verbatim NTSB analysis and probable cause from the NTSB dataset
Sources
NTSB record DEN93FA031
- Event ID
- 20001211X11964
- Case number
- DEN93FA031
- 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: 1e6cf34a53b016c6b81eeb47c35e2605467ff8b4a32f68964dc15e0c53b9bc9a; retrieved 2026-09-18T13:53:39.273Z.