MIA87FA239 · Cessna 421
Cessna 421 · Accident: in flight encounter with weather en route
From Fort Lauderdale Hollywood International Airport (FLL) to X28 · New Port Richey East, FL
Event
- NTSB case
- MIA87FA239
- 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 421
- Aircraft type
- Cessna 421
- 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
- N421DT
- Operator
- Thomas H. Koch · private individual
- Onboard fatalities
- Unknown
- Route
- From Fort Lauderdale Hollywood International Airport (FLL), FT. LAUDERDALE, FLTo X28 · New Port Richey East, 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 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
- En route · cruise
- 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
- Stall
- 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 › Airspeed, not maintained
- Pilot in command › Flight into known adverse weather, initiated
- Pilot in command › Stall, inadvertent
Approximate · Coordinates as recorded by the NTSB; no uncertainty radius is established.
NTSB narrative
THE ACFT HAD BEEN ABANDONED IN THE BAHAMAS FOR APRX 7 MONTHS. A PLT, WITH NO KNOWN FLT TIME IN A CESSNA 421, FLEW IT TO FT LAUDERDALE. EXCEPT TO AVOID CLDS, HE MADE THE FLT AT A LOW ALT & AIRSPEED. WHEN ASKED WHY, HE SAID HE WAS TRYING TO SAVE THE ENGS. THE PLT THEN DEPD TWD AN AREA OF DARK CLDS & TSTMS. WHEN HE DID NOT ARRIVE AT THE DESTN, A SEARCH WAS INITIATED. THE ACFT WAS FND 4 DAYS LATER WHERE IT CRASHED IN A STEEP NOSE DOWN ATTITUDE. RADAR DATA SHOWED THE ACFT MADESVRL HDG CHGS & WAS RTRNG TO THE DEP ARPT BEFORE IT CRASHED. THE FWD PART OF THE ACFT WAS BURIED IN A SWAMP, BUT THE AFT EDGES OF THE WINGS, FUSELAGE & EMPENNAGE WERE VISIBLE ABOVE WATER. THE PROPS HAD ROTATIONAL DMG; NO PREIMPACT MECH FAILURE OR MALFUNCTION WAS EVIDENT. AN EXAM OF THE RGT ENG REVEALED ITS #2 PUSH RODS & ROCKER ARMS/SHAFTS/RETAINERS HAD BEEN REMOVED BEFORE FLT. ALSO, A #2 SPARK PLUG WAS STOWED WITH ITS IGNITION LEAD ATTACHED. THE ACFT OWNER WAS NOT FND. THE PLT'S MED CERT WAS DATED 5/28/85.
Verbatim NTSB analysis from the NTSB dataset
Sources
NTSB record MIA87FA239
- Event ID
- 20001213X32133
- Case number
- MIA87FA239
- 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: 862ab1f23a20bfdaa30a6492bbeb7ccac961d9ace00dc2c3b7e6bfed011684ed; retrieved 2026-09-21T04:00:18.143Z.