Cherokee Leasing Smith, Ted Aerostar AEROSTAR 600 AEROSTAR 6 accident
Smith, Ted Aerostar AEROSTAR 600 AEROSTAR 6 · Accident: in flight collision with terrain/water on approach
From Shreveport Regional Airport (SHV) to Orlando Executive Airport (ORL)
Event
- NTSB case
- MIA90FA021
- 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
- 2 · 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
- Charter & commuter
- 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
Smith, Ted Aerostar AEROSTAR 600 AEROSTAR 6
- Aircraft type
- Smith Ted Aerostar AEROSTAR 600
- 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
- N7526S
- Operator
- Cherokee Leasing
- Onboard fatalities
- Unknown
- Route
- From Shreveport Regional Airport (SHV), Shreveport, LATo Orlando Executive Airport (ORL), Orlando, FL
- 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 135: Air Taxi & Commuter
- 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
- Approach
- 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 › Altitude, not maintained
Approximate · Estimated position: the centre of Apopka, FL, the place the record names. Not the accident site.
NTSB narrative
THE AIR TAXI ACFT DEPARTED SHREVEPORT, LA, AT APRX 0500 CST ON AN UNSCHEDULED, DOMESTIC, CARGO FLT. AT ABOUT 0815 EST, THE PLT RPRTD ON COMPANY FREQ THAT HE WAS APPROXIMATELY 30 MIN FROM THE DESTN (ORLANDO, FL). SUBSEQUENTLY, THE ACFT CRASHED IN THE NW PART OF LAKE APOPKA, APRX 15 TO 20 MI WNW OF THE DESTN ARPT. A WITNESS HEARD IT CRASH, THEN SAW PARTS FROM THE ACFT, BUT DID NOT SEE THE ACTUAL IMPACT. THERE WAS EVIDENCE THE ACFT IMPACTED IN A SHALLOW DESCENT, WHILE IN A SLIGHT LEFT WING LOW ATTITUDE, TRAVELING AT A RELATIVELY HIGH SPEED. NO PREIMPACT PART FAILURE OR MALFUNCTION OF THE ACFT OR ENG WAS FOUND, THOUGH THE ACFT WAS EXTENSIVELY DMGD & SOME OF THE WRECKAGE WAS NOT RECOVERED FROM THE LAKE. THE ORLANDO WX WAS IN PART: 2500' SCT, VIS 6 MI WITH FOG & HAZE, WIND FROM 350 DEG AT 4 KTS.
Probable cause
FAILURE OF THE PILOT TO MAINTAIN ALTITUDE/CLEARANCE ABOVE THE WATER, WHILE PROCEEDING OVER A LAKE AND APPROACHING THE VICINITY OF THE AIRPORT.
Verbatim NTSB analysis and probable cause from the NTSB dataset
Sources
NTSB record MIA90FA021
- Event ID
- 20001213X29833
- Case number
- MIA90FA021
- 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: e18c284a70db39a4ce761809f5f8610e8ed9132b731be3a0d69c5365bf34dcfc; retrieved 2026-09-18T14:07:37.336Z.