MIA92LA109 · Stoltzfus STILETO MK II STILETO MK
Stoltzfus STILETO MK II STILETO MK · Accident: in flight encounter with weather while maneuvering
From Lakeland Linder International Airport (LAL) to an unrecorded destination
Event
- NTSB case
- MIA92LA109
- 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
- Instrument Meteorological Cond
Stoltzfus STILETO MK II STILETO MK
- Aircraft type
- Stoltzfus STILETO MK
- 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
- N3169Q
- Operator
- Stoltzfus, John B. · private individual
- Onboard fatalities
- Unknown
- Route
- From Lakeland Linder International Airport (LAL), Lakeland, 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 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
- 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 encounter with weather
- 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
- Visual flight rules (VFR) flight into instrument meteorological conditions (IMC)
- 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 › Aircraft control, uncontrolled
- Pilot in command › Spatial disorientation
- Pilot in command › VFR flight into imc, continued
Approximate · Coordinates as recorded by the NTSB; no uncertainty radius is established.
NTSB narrative
THE PLT WAS BRIEFED BEFORE DEPARTURE THAT MARGINAL VFR WX CONDITIONS EXISTED FOR THE ROUTE OF FLIGHT. DURING CRUISE FLT, THE FLT WAS VFR ON TOP OF A LAYER OF CLOUDS. THE PLT DESCENDED THROUGH A HOLE IN THE CLOUDS, AND WHILE MANEUVERING TO A PRECAUTIONARY LANDING THE FLT ENCOUNTERED FOG. THE PLT LOST CONTROL OF THE ACFT & CRASHED. THE AIRPLANE WAS LOCATED AT 1835, APRX 6 HRS 48 MIN AFTER THE FIRST ELT SIGNAL WAS RECEIVED.
Probable cause
THE PILOT-IN-COMMAND'S CONTINUED FLIGHT INTO ADVERSE WEATHER CONDITIONS RESULTING IN A LOSS OF CONTROL DURING A PRECAUTIONARY LANDING DUE TO A LOSS OF VISUAL REFERENCES. THE WEATHER WAS A FACTOR.
Verbatim NTSB analysis and probable cause from the NTSB dataset
Sources
NTSB record MIA92LA109
- Event ID
- 20001211X14484
- Case number
- MIA92LA109
- 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: 50809499abee659e8ba401712b735374cbae47e158b889b77ace1dc7741c166f; retrieved 2026-09-21T15:02:57.432Z.