MIA91LA174 · Piper J3C-65
Piper J3C-65 · Accident: in flight encounter with weather en route
From Zephyrhills Municipal Airport (ZPH) to Hilliard, FL
Event
- NTSB case
- MIA91LA174
- 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 J3C-65
- Aircraft type
- Piper J3
- 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
- N98337
- Operator
- Osborne, George · private individual
- Onboard fatalities
- Unknown
- Route
- From Zephyrhills Municipal Airport (ZPH), Zephyrhills, FLTo Hilliard, 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
- Substantial
Cause areas
- Pilot in command › Directional control, not maintained
- Pilot in command › Preflight briefing service, not obtained
Approximate · Coordinates as recorded by the NTSB; no uncertainty radius is established.
NTSB narrative
THE PLT DID NOT OBTAIN A WX BRIEFING BEFORE DEPARTURE. THE WX WAS CLEAR AT DEPARTURE BUT THE FLT ENCOUNTERED FOG WHEN IT WAS NEAR THE PLANNED REFUELING DESTINATION. THE FLT PROCEEDED AWAY FROM THE FOG BUT THE PLT REPORTED THAT THE ENG QUIT. AFTER TOUCHDOWN IN A CLEARING, THE ACFT YAWED TO THE LT & COLLIDED WITH TREES. A DRUG SNIFFING DOG WAS TRANSPORTED TO THE ACCIDENT SITE & ALERTED ON THE AIRPLANE BUT NO DRUGS WERE FOUND. AN FAA INSPECTOR EXAMINED THE ACFT LATER THAT AFTERNOON & REPORTED THAT THE FUEL TANK CONTAINED APRX 1 GALLON OF FUEL. THE COCKPIT CONTAINED TWO FULL 5-GALLON FUEL CONTAINERS. VEGETATION WAS WRAPPED AROUND THE CRANKSHAFT AFT OF THE PROPELLER. THE PLT LEFT THE ACCIDENT SITE & WAS SEEN LATER THAT MORNING AT A PAY PHONE BY A SHERIFF'S DEPUTY BUT FLED AFTER SEEING THE DEPUTY.
Probable cause
FAILURE OF THE NONCERTIFICATED PILOT TO OBTAIN A WEATHER BRIEFING BEFORE DEPARTURE & FAILURE TO MAINTAIN DIRECTIONAL CONTROL AFTER THE PRECAUTIONARY LANDING. CONTRIBUTING TO THE ACCIDENT WAS LACK OF SUITABLE TERRAIN.
Verbatim NTSB analysis and probable cause from the NTSB dataset
Sources
NTSB record MIA91LA174
- Event ID
- 20001212X17348
- Case number
- MIA91LA174
- 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: fb9efa894eed8d12bbbf9cad1b71ae31126d46eba720f1eccd5d9703808c0dfb; retrieved 2026-09-21T23:32:49.890Z.