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MIA00LA252 · Pitts S1-T

27 Aug 2000 · Vero Beach, FL, United States

Pitts S1-T · Accident: loss of control in flight while maneuvering

From Vero Beach Regional Airport (VRB) to an unrecorded destination

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Event

NTSB case
MIA00LA252
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

Pitts S1-T

Aircraft type
Pitts S1
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
N112JG
Operator
Unknown
Onboard fatalities
Unknown
Route
From Vero Beach Regional Airport (VRB)To 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
Substantial

Cause areas

  • Pilot in command › Aircraft control, not maintained

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

NTSB narrative

N112JG, an experimental amateur built Pitts model S1-T, was found in an orange grove, about 5 miles southwest of the airport, with the pilot in the aircraft. There were no witnesses to the accident. According to an FAA inspector and a representative from the engine manufacturer, who conducted the postcrash examination, the fuselage and bottom wings exhibited compression damage, consistent with that of an aircraft near a flat attitude, with little sign of forward movement. Both main landing gear assemblies had been crushed, while the cockpit, empennage and top wing had been relatively undamaged. The engine manufacturer's representative said that there had been crushing damage to the bottom engine cowl, and the propeller and crankshaft showed that there was damage consistent with rotation at impact. The engine manufacturer's representative also said that there was no evidence of any preimpact mechanical failure or malfunction to the engine that would have prevented it from producing power. The NTSB examined components of the engine's fuel injection system, and no anomalies were noted which would have prevented the engine from producing power.

Probable cause

the pilot's failure to maintain control in flight, which resulted in an uncontrolled descent, and collision with the ground.

Verbatim NTSB analysis and probable cause from the NTSB dataset

Sources

NTSB record MIA00LA252
Event ID
20001212X21811
Case number
MIA00LA252
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: a7dc2841f5f9af9abcc269011a1ecd9d1e6f3c11f5f0d23015f14a5f14b5bd91; retrieved 2026-09-20T20:54:30.510Z.