MIA92IA093 · Douglas DC-3C
Four Star Aviation Douglas DC-3C · Incident: nose down during landing
From Cyril E. King Airport (STT) to an unrecorded destination
Event
- NTSB case
- MIA92IA093
- 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
- Incident
- 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
Douglas DC-3C
- Aircraft type
- Douglas DC-3
- 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
- N135FS
- Operator
- Four Star Aviation
- Onboard fatalities
- Unknown
- Route
- From Cyril E. King Airport (STT), St. ThomasTo 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
- Landing · landing roll
- 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
- Nose down
- DamageDestroyed: beyond practical repair. Substantial: damage that affects the structure, performance or handling and normally needs major repair. Minor: less than that. Glossary
- Minor
Cause areas
- Copilot/second pilot › Aircraft weight and balance, improper
Approximate · Estimated position: the centre of San Juan, the place the record names. Not the accident site.
NTSB narrative
DURING LANDING ROLLOUT IN VFR CONDITIONS, A DC-3C, OPERATED BY A 14 CFR PART 135 OPERATOR, ON A 14 CFR PART 91 POSITIONING FLIGHT, NOSED DOWN ON THE RUNWAY SUBSTAINING MINOR DAMAGE. THE PIC, SIC, UNAUTHORIZED JUMPSEAT RIDER, AND TWO CARGO LOADERS LOCATED IN THE COCKPIT/FORWARD COMPARTMENT WERE NOT INJURED. NO CARGO, BALLAST, OR PASSENGER SEATS FOR THE CARGO LOADERS WERE LOCATED IN THE REAR OF THE AIRPLANE AT THE TIME OF THE INCIDENT.
Probable cause
THE PILOT-IN-COMMAND'S IMPROPER LOADING OF PERSONNEL, AND IMPROPER SUPERVISION OF THE FIRST OFFICER/CO-PILOT WHILE CALCULATING THE CENTER OF GRAVITY LIMITS FOR THE FLIGHT. THIS RESULTED IN THE FORWARD CENTER OF GRAVITY LIMIT BEING EXCEEDED AND SUBSEQUENT NOSE DOWN OF THE AIRPLANE ON THE RUNWAY DURING THE LANDING ROLL. CONTRIBUTING TO THE ACCIDENT WAS THE ABSENCE OF PASSENGER SEATS FOR THE CARGO LOADERS OR BALLAST IN THE REAR OF THE AIRPLANE AT THE TIME OF THE INCIDENT.
Verbatim NTSB analysis and probable cause from the NTSB dataset
Sources
NTSB record MIA92IA093
- Event ID
- 20001211X14333
- Case number
- MIA92IA093
- 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: 72ea431f3861859a16bc314f982fdade177fb25e16ac2fc7b6493aa068dcbdb4; retrieved 2026-09-23T03:19:31.256Z.