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MIA91LA018 · Piper PA-36-285

31 Oct 1990 · OSTEEN, FL, United States

Potters Flyers Piper PA-36-285 · Accident: total loss of engine power (non-mechanical) while maneuvering

From Zellwood, FL (no airport) to an unrecorded destination

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Event

NTSB case
MIA91LA018
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
0 · 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-36-285

Aircraft type
Piper PA-36
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
N9926P
Onboard fatalities
Unknown
Route
From Zellwood, FL (no airport)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 137: Agricultural
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
Total loss of engine power (non-mechanical)
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

  • Reason for occurrence undetermined

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

NTSB narrative

THE PILOT DEPARTED FROM A PRIVATE AIRSTRIP TO CONDUCT AN AERIAL APPLICATION FLIGHT. VFR CONDITIONS PREVAILED AT THE TIME AND NO FLIGHT PLAN WAS FILED. THE PILOT STATED HE WAS AT 100 FEET AGL MANEUVERING TO MAKE AN AERIAL APPLICATION SPRAY RUN OF CHEMICALS TO THE SOUTH WHEN THE ENGINE QUIT. THE PILOT TOOK EVASIVE ACTION TO CLEAR WIRES. THE LEFT WING COLLIDED WITH THE TERRAIN. THE AIRPLANE WAS DESTROYED. THE COMMERCIAL PILOT WAS NOT INJURED. AN ENGINE TEARDOWN ANALYSIS WAS CONDUCTED. THE CAUSE FOR TOTAL LOSS OF ENGINE POWER COULD NOT BE DETERMINED.

Probable cause

TOTAL LOSS OF ENGINE POWER, FOR AN UNDETERMINED REASON.

Verbatim NTSB analysis and probable cause from the NTSB dataset

Sources

NTSB record MIA91LA018
Event ID
20001212X24514
Case number
MIA91LA018
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: 6c4ef82ec73beab67c7e94a70ec089613d3c8c3b7ee664a265d28dbfae6267d9; retrieved 2026-09-23T05:11:24.165Z.