MIA89FA214 · Cessna 210L
Cessna 210L · Accident: in flight encounter with weather
Event
- NTSB case
- MIA89FA214
- 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
- Instrument Meteorological Cond
Cessna 210L
- Aircraft type
- Cessna 210
- 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
- N2676S
- Operator
- Robert S West Fall · private individual
- Onboard fatalities
- Unknown
- Route
- From not recordedTo 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
- Unknown
- 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 encounter with weather
- 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
- Visual flight rules (VFR) flight into instrument meteorological conditions (IMC)
- 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, misjudged
- Pilot in command › Impairment(drugs)
- Pilot in command › VFR flight into imc, continued
Approximate · Estimated position: the centre of Marco, FL, the place the record names. Not the accident site.
NTSB narrative
DRG AN ILLEGAL DRUG OPN AT NGT, THE ACFT CRASHED IN THE EVERGLADES, ABT 16 MI SE OF NAPLES, FL. SURVEILLANCE PSNL IN THEAREA SAID THE VIS WAS LESS THAN 1/2 MI WITH FOG/SMOKE. ABT 3 HRS EARLIER, THE NAPLES WX WAS, IN PART: SKY PARTLY OBSCD, VIS 3 MI, WND CALM. INV REVEALED THE ACFT IMPACTED IN A SLIGHT L WING DWN, NOSE LOW, ATTITUDE, THEN BOUNCED & HIT A TREEBFR COMING TO REST ABT 270' FM THE INITIAL IMPACT PT. NO PREIMPACT MECH PROBLEM WAS EVIDENT. IN 1978, THE PLT WAS DENIEDA 1ST CLASS MED CERT DUE TO HEART DISEASE, DETECTED BY AN ELECTROCARDIOGRAM. LTR, HE GOT A 3RD CLASS MED CERT (USING AN-OTHER NAME, DOB & SSN), WHICH DID NOT REQUIRE AN ELECTROCARDIOGRAM. HIS LAST MED CERT (USING AN ALIAS) WAS DATED 8/5/86.AN AUTOPSY SHOWED HE HAD ADVANCED HEART DISEASE. MED EXAMINER BELIEVED A MASSIVE MYOCARDIAL INFARCT OR INCAPACITATING CARDIAC ARRHYTHMIA WAS A DISTINCT POSSIBILITY, BUT NO DRCT EVIDENCE OF EITHER WAS FND. A TOX CHECK OF VITREOUS FLUID SHOWED COCAINE & BENZOYLECGONINE LVLS OF 1490 & 782 NG/ML. DRUG/ALCOHOL TESTS OF KIDNEY & LIVER SPECIMENS WERE NEGATIVE.
Probable cause
CONTINUED VFR FLIGHT BY THE PILOT INTO INSTRUMENT METEOROLOGICAL CONDITIONS (IMC), HIS MISJUDGMENT OF ALTITUDE AND HIS PHYSICAL IMPAIRMENT FROM USE OF DRUGS. CONTRIBUTING FACTORS WERE: THE PILOT'S PROBABLE SPATIAL DISORIENTATION, AND THE NIGHT/WEATHER CONDITIONS.
Verbatim NTSB analysis and probable cause from the NTSB dataset
Sources
NTSB record MIA89FA214
- Event ID
- 20001213X29175
- Case number
- MIA89FA214
- 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: 04cf816293ef50e252f9b2b8f9929328aced76bfcf5980967ee3baf2f8ed930f; retrieved 2026-09-21T03:12:36.095Z.