MIA85FA180 · Piper PA-34
Piper PA-34 · Accident: in flight collision with object
From Palm Beach County Park Airport (LNA) to an unrecorded destination
Event
- NTSB case
- MIA85FA180
- 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-34
- Aircraft type
- Piper PA-34
- 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
- N3449Q
- Operator
- Albert Haward III
- Onboard fatalities
- Unknown
- Route
- From Palm Beach County Park Airport (LNA), Lantana, 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
- 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 collision with object
- 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
- Wire, transmission
- 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 › Judgment, poor
- Pilot in command › Proper altitude, not maintained
- Pilot in command › Visual lookout, inadequate
Approximate · Coordinates as recorded by the NTSB; no uncertainty radius is established.
NTSB narrative
THE PLT & PASSENGERS WERE SEEN DRINKING BEER IN A BAR PRIOR TO THE FLT. AFTER THE ACFT TOOK OFF, WITNESSES OBSERVED IT FLYING VERY LOW NEAR A SHORELINE; ONE OF THEM WAS A POLICE OFFICER THAT IDENTIFIED THE ACFT BY ITS REGISTRATION NUMBER. AT APRX 1930, THE PLT MADE A VERY LOW PASS OVER AN ARPT AT HIGH SPEED & AGAINST THE PREVAILING FLOW OF TRAFFIC. NO KNOWN WITNESSES OBSERVED THE ACDNT. THE WRECKAGE WAS FOUND 3 DAYS LATER WHERE IT HAD CRASHED ON A FEDERAL WILDLIFE PRESERVE & CAME TO REST PARTIALLY SUBMERGED AGAINST THE BANK OF A CANAL. AN EXAM OF THE CRASH SITE REVEALED THE ACFT HAD COLLIDED WITH A HIGH TENSION ELECTRICAL TRANSMISSION LINE AT ABOUT 40 FT AGL, THEN IMPACTED THE GROUND. TOXICOLOGY STUDIES BY THE MEDICAL EXAMINER SHOWED THE PLT'S BLOOD/CHEST FLUIDS HAD AN ALCOHOL LEVEL OF 0.09%. TESTS OF THE OCCUPANTS CHEST FLUIDS AT THE FAA AEROMEDICAL CENTER SHOWED ALCOHOL LEVELS OF 0.115% FOR THE PLT, 0.151% FOR THE FEMALE PASSENGER, & 0.085% FOR THE MALE PASSENGER. THE EXTENT OF POSSIBLE PUTREFACTION WAS NO VERIFIED.
Verbatim NTSB analysis from the NTSB dataset
Sources
NTSB record MIA85FA180
- Event ID
- 20001214X36522
- Case number
- MIA85FA180
- 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: eeea22d131c87c4b1aa95442e8611920684362d4bbe649914147f5cf3890ee4a; retrieved 2026-09-21T05:00:14.216Z.