MIA93LA104 · Air Tractor AT-401
Southeastern Aircraft Air Tractor AT-401 · Accident: partial loss of engine power (mechanical failure) en route
Event
- NTSB case
- MIA93LA104
- 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
Air Tractor AT-401
- Aircraft type
- Air Tractor AT-401
- 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
- N7316L
- Operator
- Southeastern Aircraft
- Onboard fatalities
- Unknown
- Route
- From not recordedTo 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
- 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
- Partial loss of engine power (mechanical failure)
- 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
- Engine assembly, cylinder › Failure, total
Approximate · Estimated position: the centre of Fort Pierce, FL, the place the record names. Not the accident site.
NTSB narrative
THE AGRICULTURAL FLIGHT HAD DEPARTED THE AIRSTRIP AND WAS EN ROUTE TO SPRAY A FIELD WHEN THE ENGINE BEGAN TO RUN ROUGH, SMOKE, AND LOSE POWER. THE PILOT ATTEMPTED TO RETURN TO THE AIRSTRIP BUT THE ENGINE DID NOT PRODUCE ADEQUATE POWER. HE INITIATED A FORCED LANDING TO A DRAINAGE DITCH. DURING THE LANDING THE AIRPLANE HIT A SPRINKLER SYSTEM AND BURST INTO FLAMES. THE NO. 2 CYLINDER WAS FOUND TO BE CRACKED ACROSS THE DOME FROM SPARKPLUG HOLE TO SPARKPLUG HOLE. NO RECORDS WERE FOUND TO DETERMINE THE SERVICE HISTORY OF THE CYLINDER.
Probable cause
FAILURE OF THE NO. 2 CYLINDER IN FATIGUE FOR UNDETERMINED REASONS, OVER UNSUITABLE TERRAIN. THE LACK OF SUITALE TERRAIN FOR THE FORCED LANDING WAS A FACTOR.
Verbatim NTSB analysis and probable cause from the NTSB dataset
Sources
NTSB record MIA93LA104
- Event ID
- 20001211X12197
- Case number
- MIA93LA104
- 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: bdbaedf6c010f1ec689254d285ddf67555f8db7a9190ebfddf9016b8b1d8ff4e; retrieved 2026-09-21T22:59:07.526Z.