MIA89FA146 · Piper PA-44-180
Flight Safety International Piper PA-44-180 · Accident: loss of control in flight while maneuvering
From Vero Beach Regional Airport (VRB) to an unrecorded destination
Narrative check · The NTSB narrative appears to contradict this record's location. Values are shown as recorded, not corrected; compare with the narrative.
Event
- NTSB case
- MIA89FA146
- 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-44-180
- Aircraft type
- Piper PA-44
- 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
- N2231M
- Operator
- Flight Safety International
- Onboard fatalities
- Unknown
- Route
- From Vero Beach Regional Airport (VRB), Vero Beach, 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
- 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
- Also codedOther events the NTSB coded in the sequence, such as a wire strike after a loss of power. Flight Findings uses them for its kinds of event. Glossary
- Stall/spin
- 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
- Airspeed › Not maintained
- Pilot in command(cfi) › Supervision, inadequate
- Stall/spin › Inadvertent
Approximate · Coordinates as recorded by the NTSB; no uncertainty radius is established.
NTSB narrative
THE FLT WAS FOR CREW COORDINATION TRAINING & WAS ADMINISTERED BY FLT SAFETY INTL FOR AER LINGUS, A FOREIGN AIRLINE. AN INSTRUCTOR (CFI) & 2 FOREIGN PLTS WERE ABOARD (STUDENTS HAD PREVIOUSLY GOTTEN U.S. CERTS WITH SINGLE/MULTI-ENG RATINGS).BEFORE THE ACDNT, THE ACFT WAS HDG NE. RADAR DATA SHOWED THAT IT TURNED EAST WHILE MAINTAINING A CONSTANT ALT OF 3500'. AFTER TURNING EAST, ITS GND SPD SLOWED TO 53 KTS. THE ACFT THEN BEGAN A RGT TURN AT A RATE OF 125 DEG/MIN. AFTER TURNINGSOUTH, THE ACFT'S GND SPD SLOWED TO 37 KTS. THE ACFT THEN ENTERED A DSCNT, WHICH INCREASED TO 8000'/MIN. WITNESSES SAW THE ACFT SPINNING LEFT, IN A NOSE DWN ATTITUDE, BEFORE IT IMPACTED IN THE OCEAN. NO PREIMPACT PART FAILURE/MALFUNCTION WAS FND. THERE WAS EVIDENCE THAT DRG IMPACT, NEITHER ENG WAS OPERG, FLAPS WERE EXTNDD 10 DEG, MAIN GEAR WAS EXTNDD & THENOSE GEAR WAS IN TRANSIT. THE ACFT MANUFACTURER RPRTD THAT A SPIN MAY CAUSE AN INTERRUPTION OF FUEL TO THE ENGS BY EXCEEDING THE CARB LIMITATIONS. INTENTIONAL SPINS WERE PROHIBITED. VMC & STALL SPDS WERE 56 & 54 KTS, RESPECTIVELY.
Probable cause
INADEQUATE SUPERVISION BY THE INSTRUCTOR PILOT (CFI), AND FAILURE OF THE CREW TO MAINTAIN SUFFICIENT AIRSPEED, WHICH RESULTED IN AN INADVERTENT STALL/SPIN AND SUBSEQUENT LOSS OF ENGINE POWER FROM POSSIBLE INTERRUPTION OF FUEL.
Verbatim NTSB analysis and probable cause from the NTSB dataset
Sources
NTSB record MIA89FA146
- Event ID
- 20001213X28366
- Case number
- MIA89FA146
- 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: f6d8c614728381be88f05923c0c84b009489084405ad6e8bf746b422309d4e9f; retrieved 2026-09-21T03:19:40.766Z.