MIA00FA163 · Piper PA-23-160
Piper PA-23-160 · Accident: loss of control in flight on approach
From Arthur Dunn Air Park (X21) to Space Coast Regional Airport (TIX)
Event
- NTSB case
- MIA00FA163
- 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
- Visual Meteorological Cond
Piper PA-23-160
- Aircraft type
- Piper PA-23
- 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
- N3492P
- Operator
- Unknown
- Onboard fatalities
- Unknown
- Route
- From Arthur Dunn Air Park (X21), FLTo Space Coast Regional Airport (TIX), 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
- Approach · VFR pattern downwind
- 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
- Tree(s)
- 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 › Aircraft control, not maintained
Approximate · Coordinates as recorded by the NTSB; no uncertainty radius is established.
NTSB narrative
According to an eyewitness, the tower controller at Space Coast Regional Airport, Titusville, Florida, (TIX), who was controlling the flight in the landing pattern, when the airplane approached the right pattern abeam-of-landing point to runway 09, it abruptly entered a wings vertical attitude and dove for the ground. The CFI, the survivor, stated postcrash, that he was giving dual check-out procedures to the rated Commercial MEL pilot who was flying. When the CFI zero-thrusted the right engine in preparation for single engine landing practice, the aircraft abruptly entered a half roll to the left, pitched down, and collided with the terrain. Postcrash examination of the engines, airframe, and their components revealed nothing causal. The CFI stated he was not 'on the controls with the pilot' and did not know what control pressures he may have been applying. He also stated that outflow from nearby power plant smoke stacks and a recent runway change from 27 to 09 may have contributed to turbulence or air instability. Two tower controllers, one with 23 years experience at the TIX airport, and the other with 19 years at the TIX airport, stated that neither of them have ever heard an aircraft in the pattern complain of smoke stack generated air instability.
Probable cause
The failure of the PIC to maintain control of the aircraft while in the simulated engine inoperative configuration in the landing pattern during a checkout flight resulting in an uncontrolled descent and collision with trees. A factor in the accident is the inadequate monitoring of aircraft control by the checkout pilot.
Verbatim NTSB analysis and probable cause from the NTSB dataset
Sources
NTSB record MIA00FA163
- Event ID
- 20001212X21056
- Case number
- MIA00FA163
- 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: 0552ad1f55f18dbc5bbbc3a947f2dd7916fd86c9b273e701497bc7e16da31795; retrieved 2026-09-20T21:13:18.490Z.