MIA91FA011 · Piper PA-28-161
Naples Air Center Piper PA-28-161 · Accident: loss of control in flight during initial climb
From Everglades Airpark (X01) to Naples Municipal Airport (APF)
Event
- NTSB case
- MIA91FA011
- 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
- 3 · 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-28-161
- Aircraft type
- Piper PA-28
- 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
- N143FT
- Operator
- Naples Air Center
- Onboard fatalities
- Unknown
- Route
- From Everglades Airpark (X01), EVERGLADES CITY, FLTo Naples Municipal Airport (APF), Naples, 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
- Initial climb
- 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 › Altitude, not maintained
- Pilot in command › Spatial disorientation
Approximate · Estimated position: the centre of Everglades City, FL, the place the record names. Not the accident site.
NTSB narrative
THE NONINSTRUMENT RATED PRIVATE PLT DEPARTED ON A NIGHT VFR FLIGHT FROM A SPARSELY POPULATED AIRFIELD OVER WATER. VFR CONDITIONS EXISTED, HOWEVER NO NATURAL HORIZON OR SURFACE REFERENCE WAS AVAILABLE. THE ELEVATION OF THE MOON WAS -43.7 DEGREES WITH 7% ILLUMINATION. NO FLIGHT PLAN WAS FILED. WITNESSES OBSERVED THE AIRPLANE CLIMB TO 125-300 FEET AGL ON A RIGHT CROSSWIND DEPARTURE AND LEVEL OFF. THE AIRPLANE MADE A LEFT TURN DESCENDING IN A 20 DEGREE NOSE-DOWN ATTITUDE, RIGHT WING LOW, WITH THE ENGINE RUNNING AND COLLIDED WITH THE WATER.
Probable cause
THE PILOT'S FAILURE TO MAINTAIN ALTITUDE AND HIS SPATIAL DISORIENTATION DURING A NIGHT TAKEOFF OVER WATER.
Verbatim NTSB analysis and probable cause from the NTSB dataset
Sources
NTSB record MIA91FA011
- Event ID
- 20001212X24500
- Case number
- MIA91FA011
- 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: local date, investigation status. Values present in the bulk record are kept.
- The date is the local date; the NTSB stores the UTC date 1990-10-16.
- API snapshot SHA-256: 965620e155de69c4a3d9f67a9917fed2f574ed49e8c10af21e3d723695f7b914; retrieved 2026-09-21T02:06:49.277Z.