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MIA99LA242 · Sukhoi SU-29

1 Sept 1999 · Fort Lauderdale, FL, United States

Sukhoi SU-29 · Accident: airframe, component or system failure while maneuvering

From North Perry Airport (HWO) to an unrecorded destination

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Event

NTSB case
MIA99LA242
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

Sukhoi SU-29

Aircraft type
Sukhoi SU-29
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
N52PB
Operator
Unknown
Onboard fatalities
Unknown
Route
From North Perry Airport (HWO), Hollywood, 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
Airframe, component or system failure
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

  • Flight control, aileron › Failure

Approximate · Coordinates as recorded by the NTSB; no uncertainty radius is established.

NTSB narrative

The pilot been doing aerobatic snap rolls. After approximately 10-15 snaps he began another. As he pulled on the stick he '...felt the ailerons brake loose.' He recovered from the snap at 2,500 feet agl. The airplane started a 20 degree to 30 degree steep descending turn to the right. He attempted to right the airplane with back stick and left rudder to no avail. He elected to make a controlled landing in a turn. About 600 feet agl the right wing went down to 90 degrees the nose then went down the same till impact with the ground. At no time did he have any directional or aileron control of the airplane. Laboratory examination of the inboard sections of the right aileron, the inboard aerodynamic compensator (spade) from the right aileron, and the outboard aerodynamic compensator from the left aileron, revealed, the in-flight loss of control was due to fatigue cracking and the subsequent fracture of the actuator lever attaching the right aileron to the control rod. In addition, the left aileron was cracked and a portion of this spar had been missing for some time. The fatigue cracking in the actuator lever from the right aileron and the rupture of the aft spar in the left aileron were precipitated by the fatigue cracking in the attachment structure of the inboard spade from the right aileron and the outboard spade from the left aileron.

Probable cause

an in-flight failure of the right aileron due to fatigue cracking in the attachment structure of the right inboard aerodynamic compensator, which resulted in a loss of control, a forced landing, and subsequent impact with the ground.

Verbatim NTSB analysis and probable cause from the NTSB dataset

Sources

NTSB record MIA99LA242
Event ID
20001212X19827
Case number
MIA99LA242
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: 35c892fc36111a7c232e0a53a2babb159374ffe15fbd8cffe6f37320b4c4021d; retrieved 2026-09-21T10:50:41.961Z.