MIA90FA022 · Piper 601P
Piper 601P · Accident: in flight collision with terrain/water on approach
From Miami International Airport (KMIA) to Southwest Florida International Airport (KRSW)
Event
- NTSB case
- MIA90FA022
- 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
- Charter & commuter
- 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
Piper 601P
- Aircraft type
- Piper 601
- 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
- N50TR
- Operator
- Unknown
- Onboard fatalities
- Unknown
- Route
- From Miami International Airport (KMIA), Miami, FLTo Southwest Florida International Airport (KRSW)
- 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 · IFR final 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 › Decision height, not identified
- Pilot in command › IFR procedure, improper
Approximate · Coordinates as recorded by the NTSB; no uncertainty radius is established.
NTSB narrative
THE ACFT DEPD MIAMI AT NGT ON AN ON-DEMAND, AIR TAXI FLT TO FT MYERS, FL. DURING ARRIVAL AT THE DESTN, THE FLT ENCTRD IFR CONDS. THE PLT OBTAINED CLNC FOR AN ILS RWY 6 APCH & WAS TOLD TO RPRT AT THE OUTER MARKER (OM). AT 0152:25 EST, HE RPRTD TO MIAMI CENTER THAT HE WAS OVER THE OM. THIS WAS HIS LAST TRANSMISSION TO AN ATC FACILITY. AT ABOUT 0203 EST, HE MADE A TRANSMISSION ON UNICOM FREQ TO INFORM ARPT OPNS PSNL THAT HE COULD NOT GET THE APCH LIGHTS TO OPERATE. HE WAS ASKED IF HE HAD USED THE PROPER FREQ & HAD KEYED THE MIKE THE REQUIRED NUMBER OF TIMES. THE PLT INDCD THAT HE HAD PROPERLY KEYED THE MIKE; HOWEVER, UNICOM PSNL DID NOT HEAR ANY KEYING OF THE MIKE EXCEPT FOR 2 CLICKS. THE ACFT CTCD THE GND IN A NRLY LEVEL ATTITUDE & WITH THE GEAR EXTENDED, APRX 1.5 MI SHORT OF RWY 6. IT THEN SKIDDED ABOUT 90 FT & HIT A TREE BEFORE COMING TO REST. NO PREIMPACT PART FAILURE/MALFUNCTION WAS FND WITH THE ACFT, ENG OR APCH/RWY LIGHTS. THE 0149 EST WX AT FT MYERS WAS IN PART: SKY OBSCURED, VIS 1/4 MI WITH FOG.
Probable cause
FAILURE OF THE PILOT TO PROPERLY FOLLOW THE IFR PROCEDURE AND TO IDENTIFY THE DECISION HEIGHT. FACTORS RELATED TO THE ACCIDENT WERE: THE ADVERSE WEATHER CONDITIONS, DARKNESS, THE PILOT'S LACK OF VISUAL PERCEPTION WITHOUT THE APPROACH LIGHTS, AND TREE(S) IN THE ACCIDENT AREA.
Verbatim NTSB analysis and probable cause from the NTSB dataset
Sources
NTSB record MIA90FA022
- Event ID
- 20001213X29834
- Case number
- MIA90FA022
- 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: 8694259d69c0cccadb6c0605d05bc169d1d16af51e8d0319a5e26747f6608a33; retrieved 2026-09-18T14:07:40.914Z.