MIA99LA149 · R.O. and D.O Hewitt KITFOX IV-1200 KITFOX IV-
R.O. and D.O Hewitt KITFOX IV-1200 KITFOX IV- · Accident: loss of control in flight during initial climb
From an unrecorded airport to Blacksburg, VA
Event
- NTSB case
- MIA99LA149
- 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
- 2 · 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
R.O. and D.O Hewitt KITFOX IV-1200 KITFOX IV-
- Aircraft type
- R O And D O Hewitt KITFOX IV-1200
- 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
- N314PG
- Operator
- Unknown
- Onboard fatalities
- Unknown
- Route
- From not recordedTo Blacksburg, VA
- 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
- Initial climb
- 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
- Loss of control in flight
- 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
- Stall
- 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 › Airspeed(vs), not maintained
- Pilot in command › Stall, inadvertent
Approximate · Coordinates as recorded by the NTSB; no uncertainty radius is established.
NTSB narrative
The flight departed VFR from Savannah, Georgia, and landed on Lake Kannapolis, Kannapolis, North Carolina. Witnesses on the lake stated that the airplane remained on the water for approximately 30 minutes. The airplane was positioned on the south end of the lake which has a east-west oriented causway which crosses the lake. The airplane was observed taking off to the north then after becoming airborne, the airplane remained about 5 feet above the water. While approaching the causway, the airplane was observed to pull up into a steep climb, stall, and spin to the left. The witnesses reported hearing the engine operating at what they perceived to be full throttle with no discrepancies noted. Examination of the airplane by an FAA inspector revealed no evidence of engine or flight control preimpact failure or malfunction. The airplane was last inspected on October 5, 1996, there was no further condition inspections recorded. Toxicological analysis by the FAA of specimens of the pilot were positive in the blood for tetrahydrocannabinol and tetrahydrocannabinol carboxylic acid. Tetrahydrocannabinol carboxylic acid was also detected in the pilots urine.
Probable cause
The failure of the pilot-in-command to maintain airspeed and the inadvertent stall resulting in the uncontrolled descent with terrain. A factor in the accident was the impairment of the pilot by drugs (tetrahydrocannabinol).
Verbatim NTSB analysis and probable cause from the NTSB dataset
Sources
NTSB record MIA99LA149
- Event ID
- 20001212X18839
- Case number
- MIA99LA149
- 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: 9738a34f4daab7039c1a87357f2e27ecae35b1cd15d3e52f678e7c267ab5cb28; retrieved 2026-09-20T22:07:53.529Z.