MIA88FA081 · Cessna 152
Am. Avia. TRN. Ent Cessna 152 · Accident: in flight collision with terrain/water en route
From Fort Lauderdale Executive Airport (FXE) to an unrecorded destination
Event
- NTSB case
- MIA88FA081
- 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
Cessna 152
- Aircraft type
- Cessna 152
- 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
- N24480
- Operator
- Am. Avia. TRN. Ent
- Onboard fatalities
- Unknown
- Route
- From Fort Lauderdale Executive Airport (FXE), FT. LAUDERDALE, FLTo 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
- En route · descent
- 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
- In flight collision with terrain/water
- 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 › Descent, intentional
- Pilot in command › Psychological condition
- Pilot in command › Pull-up, not performed
Approximate · Coordinates as recorded by the NTSB; no uncertainty radius is established.
NTSB narrative
ACFT WAS SEEN DESCENDING IN A NEAR VERTICAL DIVE AT A HIGH RATE OF SPEED WITH NO ROTATION ALONG THE ROLL AXIS. THE ACFT CRASHED NOSE FIRST INTO A NEWLY PLANTED CORN FIELD. POST CRASH EXAMINATION OF THE ACFT STRUCTURE, FLIGHT CONTROLS, AND ENGINE REVEALED NO EVIDENCE OF PRECRASH MECHANICAL FAILURE OR MALFUNCTION. THE INVESTIGATION REVEALED THAT THE PILOT HAD EXPERIENCED MEDICAL PROBLEMS WITH CANCER; HIS BROTHER HAD DIED FROM CANCER; HIS FATHER HAD DIED THREE MONTHS BEFORE; AND HIS MOTHER-IN-LAW, WHOM HE WAS CLOSE TO, RECENTLY HAD A STROKE. THE PILOT'S WIFE INITIALLY STATED THAT SHE BELIEVED THE PILOT HAD INTENTIONALLY KILLED HIMSELF. THE PILOT WAS ON AN UNSUPERVISED SOLO BUT HAD NOT BEEN CLEARED OUT OF THE TRAFFIC PATTERN. THE ACCIDENT SITE WAS 11 MILES FROM THE AIRPORT. THE MEDICAL EXAMINER RULED THE MANNER OF DEATH AS SUICIDE.
Verbatim NTSB analysis from the NTSB dataset
Sources
NTSB record MIA88FA081
- Event ID
- 20001213X24938
- Case number
- MIA88FA081
- 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: acfb36c44b5e984cd14b9ccff6409dfc68bb152c7f66508e9a7f338e6d1857c1; retrieved 2026-09-21T03:51:21.557Z.