MIA93FA025 · Cessna 152
Delta Aircraft Cessna 152 · Accident: in flight encounter with weather en route
From St. Petersburg Clearwater International Airport (PIE) to Dunnellon Marion Co & Park of Commerce Airport (X35)
Event
- NTSB case
- MIA93FA025
- 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
- 1 · 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
Cessna 152
- Aircraft type
- Cessna 152
- 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
- N5324M
- Operator
- Delta Aircraft
- Onboard fatalities
- Unknown
- Route
- From St. Petersburg Clearwater International Airport (PIE), Clearwater, FLTo Dunnellon Marion Co & Park of Commerce Airport (X35), Dunnellon, FL
- 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
- En route · cruise
- 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
- DamageDestroyed: beyond practical repair. Substantial: damage that affects the structure, performance or handling and normally needs major repair. Minor: less than that. Glossary
- Destroyed
Cause areas
- Pilot in command › Altitude, not maintained
- Pilot in command › Became lost/disoriented, inadvertent
Approximate · Estimated position: the centre of Ocala, FL, the place the record names. Not the accident site.
NTSB narrative
STUDENT PILOT RECEIVED AN IN-PERSON WEATHER BRIEFING AT THE FAA FSS AT 0919 FOR A VFR CROSS COUNTRY-FLIGHT TO AN ARPT 70 MILES NORTH OF HIS DEPARTURE POINT. VFR CONDITIONS WERE FORECAST ALONG THE ROUTE OF FLIGHT. AT 1014, THE STUDENT'S FLIGHT INSTRUCTOR FILED A VFR FLIGHT PLAN BUT DID NOT REQUEST UPDATED WEATHER INFORMATION. AT 1117, THE STUDENT DEPARTED. AT ABOUT 1200, THE STUDENT WAS OBSERVED TO MAKE A TOUCH-AND-GO AT THE DEST ARPT AND DEPART TO THE SOUTH. AFTER THIS, SEVERAL WITNESSES OVERHEARD AN UNIDENTIFIED ACFT TALKING ON THE DEST ARPT UNICOM FREQUENCY TO A PILOT WHO WAS LOST IN RAIN SHOWERS. THE LOST PILOT HAD A FOREIGN ACCENT AS DID THE STUDENT IN N5324M. AT 1500, THE WRECKAGE OF N5324M WAS LOCATED NEAR OCALA, FLORIDA, 7 NAUTICAL MILES NORTHEAST OF THE DESTINATION AIRPORT. THE ACFT'S HOBBS METER INDICATED THE ACFT HAD FLOWN 1 HOUR SINCE DEPARTURE. THE WEATHER AT OCALA AT THE TIME OF THE ACCIDENT WAS INSTRUMENT METEOROLOGICAL CONDITIONS IN RAIN SHOWERS, LOW CEILINGS AND VISIBILITY. EXAMINATION OF THE ACFT AFTER THE ACCIDENT REVEALED NO EVIDENCE OF FAILURE OR MALFUNCTION OF THE ACFT STRUCTURE, FLIGHT CONTROLS, OR ENGINE. AFTER THE STUDENT RECEIVED HIS WEATHER BRIEFING AT 0915, AN AREA OF UNFORECAST SHOWERS DEVELOPED TO THE NORTH OF HIS DEST ARPT.
Probable cause
THE PILOT-IN-COMMAND BECOMING LOST AND DISORIENTED AND HIS FAILURE TO MAINTAIN ALTITUDE.
Verbatim NTSB analysis and probable cause from the NTSB dataset
Sources
NTSB record MIA93FA025
- Event ID
- 20001211X16200
- Case number
- MIA93FA025
- 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: 641005dc675106ea96e37fa9b1986037005dc75ab0af90988bc21dbd393e347b; retrieved 2026-09-21T00:47:23.883Z.