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MIA00FA172 · Avions Mudry ET CIE CAP 10B

27 May 2000 · Bunnell, FL, United States

Avions Mudry ET CIE CAP 10B and Avions Mudry ET CIE CAP 10B · Accident: midair collision while maneuvering

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Event

NTSB case
MIA00FA172
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

Aircraft 1 · Avions Mudry ET CIE CAP 10B

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
N82BW
Operator
Unknown
Onboard fatalities
Unknown
Route
From X47To 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
Midair collision
DamageDestroyed: beyond practical repair. Substantial: damage that affects the structure, performance or handling and normally needs major repair. Minor: less than that. Glossary
Destroyed

Aircraft 2 · Avions Mudry ET CIE CAP 10B

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
N86KB
Operator
Unknown
Onboard fatalities
Unknown
Route
From X47To 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
Midair collision
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 › Clearance, not maintained
  • Pilot in command › Formation flying, misjudged
  • Pilot of other aircraft › Clearance, not maintained
  • Pilot of other aircraft › Formation flying, misjudged

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

NTSB narrative

The two-aircraft formation aerobatic air show team was performing low level, (500 to 700 feet, agl) aerobatic maneuvers over their home base, Flagler County Airport, Bunnell, Florida, with the intention of producing an audio/videotape for promotional and documentary purposes. Examination of the audio/videotape revealed that after about 17 minutes of routine that involved formation overheads, hammerhead stalls, split-ups and rejoins, the team entered a third hammerhead stall in the two abreast formation. In the recovery, the wingman failed to maintain the two abreast formation in their vertical downward recovery and never established himself in his own vertical downward line, resulting in his misplacing his aircraft ahead of and encroaching into the lead's downward vertical airspace. The videotape shows the lead aircraft's low wing configuration prevented observation of the wingman until too late to avoid the midair collision. Postcrash examination of both aircraft revealed no engine, flight control, or airframe component failure or malfunction that could be considered causal. All aircraft components were contained within the immediate wreckage area.

Probable cause

A midair collision due to the failure of the wingman to maintain proper clearance between his aircraft and the lead aircraft while conducting formation aerobatics and the subsequent loss of control of both aircraft resulting in an uncontrolled descent and collision of both aircraft with the terrain. A factor in the accident was the faulty design of the belly-to-belly maneuver that required the wingman to discontinue continuous observation of the lead aircraft.

Verbatim NTSB analysis and probable cause from the NTSB dataset

Sources

NTSB record MIA00FA172
Event ID
20001212X21058
Case number
MIA00FA172
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: eee24401b511d95b1b7077adffdb3fc59b2016e5e5a8d868235a3a613c609c0c; retrieved 2026-09-20T21:11:52.238Z.