MIA88LA121 · Schleicher K-8B
Sunspot Soaring Schleicher K-8B · Accident: airframe, component or system failure while maneuvering
From 6X5 to an unrecorded destination
Event
- NTSB case
- MIA88LA121
- 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
Schleicher K-8B
- Aircraft type
- Schleicher K-8
- Category
- Glider
- 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
- N4663S
- Operator
- Sunspot Soaring
- Onboard fatalities
- Unknown
- Route
- From 6X5To 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
- Airframe, component or system failure
- 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
- Wing, wing rib › Failure, total
Approximate · Estimated position: the centre of Miami, FL, the place the record names. Not the accident site.
NTSB narrative
THE PLT STATED THAT HE HAD PLACED THE GLIDER INTO A MILD DIVE & WAS INDICATING 90 TO 95 MPH, WELL BELOW REDLINE SPEED WHEN THE WHOLE SECTION OF THE TRAILING EDGE OF THE WING FROM THE AFT SPAR & WING ROOT OUT TO A DIST OF ABOUT 6 FT, SEPARATED FROM THE ACFT. THE PLT WAS ABLE TO LAND WITHOUT FURTHER INCIDENT. ALTHOUGH MOST OF THE FAILED PIECES FELL FROM THE ACFT & WERE NOT RECOVERED, AN EXAM OF THE WING ROOT RIB REVEALED THAT IT HAD FAILED. THE WING SPOILER ATTACH BRACKET FOR THE SPOILER BELLCRANK IS ATTACHED TO THE FAILED RIB. THE PLT STATED THAT THE SPOILERS FLEW OPEN INADVERTENTLY DURING OR IMMEDIATELY AFTER THE FAILURE OCCURRED. THE REASON FOR THE FAILURE COULD NOT BE DETERMINED. THE ACFT IS CONSTRUCTED ENTIRELY OF WOOD.
Verbatim NTSB analysis from the NTSB dataset
Sources
NTSB record MIA88LA121
- Event ID
- 20001213X25301
- Case number
- MIA88LA121
- 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: 168ebaf80c387c4a035d29c43bef93433fbfe849d6b18d5867c215525bd8abfb; retrieved 2026-09-23T10:52:40.566Z.