MIA00LA228 · Quicksilver MXL II SPORT MXL II SPO
Quicksilver MXL II SPORT MXL II SPO · Accident: loss of control in flight while maneuvering
From Briar Patch Airport (9GA1) to an unrecorded destination
Event
- NTSB case
- MIA00LA228
- 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
Quicksilver MXL II SPORT MXL II SPO
- Aircraft type
- Quicksilver MXL II SPORT
- 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
- UNREG
- Operator
- Unknown
- Onboard fatalities
- Unknown
- Route
- From Briar Patch Airport (9GA1), CLYO, GATo 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
- Loss of control in flight
- 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
- Pilot in command › Impairment(drugs)
Approximate · Coordinates as recorded by the NTSB; no uncertainty radius is established.
NTSB narrative
According to the owner/home-builder of the aircraft, he had just test flown the newly finished, personally modified Quicksilver MXL II Sport, twice for a total time of about 15 minutes. He allowed the accident pilot to fly it next, and after about three or four circles over the airstrip, the aircraft flew out of sight over a forest. When the engine sound abruptly stopped, the owner/builder went searching and found the wreckage. According to FAA inspectors, the aircraft did not meet the requirements for FAR Part 103 relating to ultralight vehicles. The owner/builder, the accident pilot, and the aircraft were not FAA certified or registered. The owner/builder, the accident pilot, and the aircraft were not USUA or EAA registered, and the aircraft had not been granted a USUA or EAA waiver for ultralight training. Examination of the wreckage site revealed evidence that the engine, airframe, and flight controls were functional until tree and terrain collision. FAA Toxicology and Accident Research Laboratory testing of specimens from the pilot revealed use of numerous prescription drugs, as well as recent use of marihuana.
Probable cause
The failure of the pilot to maintain control of the aircraft due to impairment by use of drugs, and the resultant uncontrolled descent and in-flight collision with the terrain.
Verbatim NTSB analysis and probable cause from the NTSB dataset
Sources
NTSB record MIA00LA228
- Event ID
- 20001212X21555
- Case number
- MIA00LA228
- 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: fa9e21745e3bc3663c2c6e34ca75a75dbc61a07ac12fcb1c720e48c59da909c3; retrieved 2026-09-20T21:00:36.870Z.