MIA92LA152 · Cessna 172N
Bay Aero Center Cessna 172N · Accident: propeller/rotor contact to person before flight
From PFN to Huntsville International Airport (HSV)
Event
- NTSB case
- MIA92LA152
- 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
Cessna 172N
- Aircraft type
- Cessna 172
- 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
- N733MX
- Operator
- Bay Aero Center
- Onboard fatalities
- Unknown
- Route
- From PFNTo Huntsville International Airport (HSV), Huntsville, AL
- 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
- Prior to flight
- 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
- Propeller/rotor contact to person
- DamageDestroyed: beyond practical repair. Substantial: damage that affects the structure, performance or handling and normally needs major repair. Minor: less than that. Glossary
- None
Cause areas
- Pilot in command › Procedures/directives, not followed
Approximate · Coordinates as recorded by the NTSB; no uncertainty radius is established.
NTSB narrative
THE PILOT STATED THE STARTER MOTOR WOULD RUN BUT NOT TURN ENGINE. HE WAS TOLD BY ANOTHER PILOT THAT WHEN THIS HAPPENS HE SHOULD EXIT THE AIRCRAFT AND REPOSITION THE PROPELLER. HE TURNED OFF THE MAGNETOS AND EXITED THE AIRCRAFT. AS HE TURNED THE PROPELLER, IT ROTATED AROUND DUE TO ENGINE COMPRESSION AND STRUCK HIM ON THE FOREHEAD. HE LOST HIS BALANCE AND FELL BACKWARD, AT WHICH TIME HE STRUCK HIS HEAD ON THE RAMP, CAUSING A SKULL FRACTURE.
Probable cause
THE PILOT-IN-COMMAND'S FAILURE TO STAND CLEAR OF THE PROPELLER AS HE ROTATED IT BY HAND, RESULTING IN THE PROPELLER ROTATING AROUND DUE TO ENGINE COMPRESSION, STRIKING THE PILOT, CAUSING HIM TO LOSE HIS BALANCE AND FALL TO THE RAMP, RESULTING IN SERIOUS INJURY.
Verbatim NTSB analysis and probable cause from the NTSB dataset
Sources
NTSB record MIA92LA152
- Event ID
- 20001211X15232
- Case number
- MIA92LA152
- 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, damage. 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: b54cf00930211c3e9ab9c9fb2460b6d5b3f87d75478ca188d60c87e9cc582f4e; retrieved 2026-09-21T14:50:07.677Z.