MIA00LA008 · Eddie A. Smith KR-2
Eddie A. Smith KR-2 · Accident during takeoff
From City of Murfreesboro Airport (MBT) to UNKNOWN
Event
- NTSB case
- MIA00LA008
- 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
Eddie A. Smith KR-2
- Aircraft type
- Eddie A Smith KR-2
- 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
- N85ES
- Operator
- Unknown
- Onboard fatalities
- Unknown
- Route
- From City of Murfreesboro Airport (MBT), Murfreesboro, TNTo UNKNOWN
- 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
- Takeoff
- 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
- Miscellaneous/other
- 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
- Fuel exhaustion; 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 › In-flight planning/decision, poor
- Pilot in command › Stall, inadvertent
Approximate · Coordinates as recorded by the NTSB; no uncertainty radius is established.
NTSB narrative
Five gallons of fuel were added before the flight departed; after departure the flight proceeded to an airport located approximately 19 nautical miles away where a touch-and-go landing was observed. While flying northbound, northeast of the airport, witnesses heard the engine 'spittering and sputtering.' The airplane was then observed to turn to the left, followed by hearing the engine quit. They then observed the airplane in a nose low attitude, spinning and lost sight due to obstructions. Examination of the accident site by FAA inspectors revealed that the airplane descended vertical with little forward movement. A slight odor of fuel was noted in the damaged fuel tank, but no fuel was found; and no evidence of hydraulic action of the fuel tank was noted. No evidence of flight control preimpact failure or malfunction was noted. A seatbelt was not available for the right seat occupant, and replacement of the retractable main landing gear with a fixed type gear was performed but new weight and balance sheet was not located and the work performed was not documented in the aircraft maintenance records. Weight calculations performed indicate that the airplane was approximately 3 pounds over maximum design gross weight at the time of the accident.
Probable cause
The poor in-flight planning decision by the pilot-in-command for continuing the flight with inadequate fuel supply and the inadvertent stall by the pilot-in-command following total loss of engine power due to fuel exhaustion. Findings in the accident were the pilot's intentional operation of the airplane with a passenger without providing a restraint system to that person, and operation of the airplane in an over gross weight condition.
Verbatim NTSB analysis and probable cause from the NTSB dataset
Sources
NTSB record MIA00LA008
- Event ID
- 20001212X20011
- Case number
- MIA00LA008
- 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: 3308abeb66084acfe6b500b108f770c38b773c429dde088088a25f1f0f4a3ed9; retrieved 2026-09-20T21:42:21.973Z.