MIA93LA128 · John Shufflebarger ZENAIR ZODIAK ZENAIR ZOD
John Shufflebarger ZENAIR ZODIAK ZENAIR ZOD · Accident: loss of control in flight on approach
From Lakeland Linder International Airport (LAL) to an unrecorded destination
Event
- NTSB case
- MIA93LA128
- 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
John Shufflebarger ZENAIR ZODIAK ZENAIR ZOD
- Aircraft type
- John Shufflebarger ZENAIR ZODIAK
- 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
- N693JS
- Operator
- Shufflebarger, John B. · private individual
- Onboard fatalities
- Unknown
- Route
- From Lakeland Linder International Airport (LAL)To 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
- 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/mush
- 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 › Airspeed(vs), not maintained
- Pilot in command › Diverted attention
- Pilot in command › Stall/mush, inadvertent
Approximate · Coordinates as recorded by the NTSB; no uncertainty radius is established.
NTSB narrative
THE PILOT STATED THAT WHILE AT 150 FEET ON SHORT FINAL APPROACH THE CANOPY CAME OPEN ON THE LEFT SIDE AND OPENED TO THE RIGHT. THE CANOPY THEN SEPARATED. THE AIRSPEED INADVERTENTLY GOT LOW AND THE AIRCRAFT DESCENDED. THE AIRCRAFT THEN TOUCHED DOWN HARD AT A POINT 1000 FEET SHORT OF THE RUNWAY. THE MANUFACTURER OF THE AIRCRAFT KIT STATED HE HAD FLOWN THE AIRCRAFT ON THE PREVIOUS FLIGHT AND HAD NO PROBLEMS WITH THE CANOPY. HE STATED THE CANOPY DESIGN HAS HAD NO PREVIOUS PROBLEMS OR CASES OF IT COMING OPEN IN FLIGHT. HE STATED THE PILOT MUST NOT HAVE HAD THE CANOPY FULLY LOCKED FOR THE FLIGHT.
Probable cause
THE FAILURE OF THE PILOT-IN-COMMAND TO MAINTAIN AIRSPEED AFTER SEPARATION OF THE CANOPY, RESULTING IN THE AIRCRAFT ENTERING A STALL/MUSH CONDITION AND DESCENDING UNCONTROLLED TO THE GROUND. CONTRIBUTING TO THE ACCIDENT WAS THE FAILURE OF THE PILOT-IN-COMMAND TO FULLY LOCK THE CANOPY BEFORE FLIGHT.
Verbatim NTSB analysis and probable cause from the NTSB dataset
Sources
NTSB record MIA93LA128
- Event ID
- 20001211X12461
- Case number
- MIA93LA128
- 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: 91905b3cc8423747d4e1415485912c17fc65a993cde56f2d969a1f9c51e87fd4; retrieved 2026-09-23T02:04:28.545Z.