MIA92LA079 · Piper PA-28-161
Island Aviation Services Piper PA-28-161 · Accident: in flight collision with terrain/water while maneuvering
Event
- NTSB case
- MIA92LA079
- 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
Piper PA-28-161
- Aircraft type
- Piper PA-28
- 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
- N8346B
- Operator
- Island Aviation Services
- 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 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
- Maneuvering · turn to reverse direction
- 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 collision with terrain/water
- 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 › Altimeter, not corrected
- Pilot in command › Spatial disorientation
Approximate · Coordinates as recorded by the NTSB; no uncertainty radius is established.
NTSB narrative
THE STUDENT PLT DID NOT SET THE ALTIMETER TO THE FIELD ELEVATION BEFORE DEPARTURE. THE FLT DEPARTED, FLEW SOUTH ALONG THE COAST AT AN INDICATED ALTITUDE OF 500 FT, THEN TURNED LT TO RETURN, FLYING TOWARD THE ATLANTIC OCEAN. WHILE TURNING, THE AIRPLANE BEGAN DESCENDING WHICH THE PILOT ATTEMPTED TO CORRECT BY APPLYING POWER, BUT THE AIRPLANE IMPACTED THE WATER. THE PILOT FURTHER STATED THAT THE ALTIMETER INDICATED 400 FEET AT IMPACT. ACCORDING TO THE OWNER OF THE AIRPLANE, THE PILOT HAD NOT RECEIVED INSTRUCTION IN NIGHT FLYING, DID NOT HAVE PERMISSION TO FLY THE AIRPLANE, NOR HAD HE RECEIVED TRAINING IN THIS MAKE AND MODEL AIRPLANE. THE PILOT FURTHER STATED THAT HE HAD NOT FLOWN IN THE PREVIOUS 6 MONTHS.
Probable cause
SPATIAL DISORIENTATION AND FAILURE OF THE PILOT-IN-COMMAND TO SET THE ALTIMETER TO THE FIELD ELEVATION PRIOR TO DEPARTURE. CONTRIBUTING TO THE ACCIDENT WAS THE PILOT'S LACK OF TOTAL AND RECENT EXPERIENCE.
Verbatim NTSB analysis and probable cause from the NTSB dataset
Sources
NTSB record MIA92LA079
- Event ID
- 20001211X14153
- Case number
- MIA92LA079
- 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: local date, investigation status. Values present in the bulk record are kept.
- The date is the local date; the NTSB stores the UTC date 1992-02-08.
- API snapshot SHA-256: f4e6c33aa71793363f20030ea7b9a9aeb77666caa37bf047f28f8d7e8ab0ec16; retrieved 2026-09-21T15:07:53.258Z.