MIA01GA070 · Piper PA-32-300
Piper PA-32-300 · Accident: loss of control in flight while maneuvering
From Miami-Opa Locka Executive Airport (OPF) to an unrecorded destination
Event
- NTSB case
- MIA01GA070
- 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
- Unknown
- 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-32-300
- Aircraft type
- Piper PA-32
- 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
- N99WD
- Operator
- Casey A. Purvis · private individual
- Onboard fatalities
- Unknown
- Route
- From Miami-Opa Locka Executive Airport (OPF), Opa Locka, 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
- Maneuvering
- 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
- Loss of control in flight
- 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 › Lack of recent instrument time
Approximate · Coordinates from the NTSB case API, which marks them as estimated or does not say; no uncertainty radius is established.
NTSB narrative
The accident pilot was conducting a night intercept training mission with a Coast Guard airplane. The accident pilot stated that it was getting a bit hazy and informed the Coast Guard pilot that he would be breaking off and turning to the north to get separation for another intercept. The Coast Guard airplane accelerated and asked the accident pilot to proceed north at a slower airspeed to allow separation. The accident pilot responded I'm IMC maintaining 180 degrees. The Coast Guard pilot informed the accident pilot that they were well to the north and there was no conflict. There was no other radio communication with the accident pilot. Review of radar data revealed that the accident airplane continued south bound at 1,600 feet before making a slight left turn followed by a turn back to the right at 00:48:08. The airplane made another turn to the left and back to the right. AT 00:49:47, the airplane is observed to start a left turn, and stops on a north heading at 1,500 feet. At 00:50:47, the airplane is observed to start a right turn. The last recorded radar hit is at 00:51:08, at 1,500 feet. Examination of the airframe, flight controls, engine assembly and accessories , vacuum pump and flight instruments revealed no evidence of a precrash mechanical failure or malfunction. Review of the pilot's log book revealed the pilot was awarded an instrument rating on December 23, 2000, and had flown two flights consisting of .8 since obtaining the instrument rating.
Probable cause
The pilot-in-command's lack of recent experience in instrument flight resulting in the pilot becoming spatially disoriented, and subsequent in-flight collision with water while descending.
Verbatim NTSB analysis and probable cause from the NTSB dataset
Sources
NTSB record MIA01GA070
- Event ID
- 20010207X00413
- Case number
- MIA01GA070
- 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: local date, investigation status, coordinates. Values present in the bulk record are kept.
- The date is the local date; the NTSB stores the UTC date 2001-02-02.
- API snapshot SHA-256: 685ddf438b75828cebb0f43f84961a9588a184e06fc11192c9024cc8d338a28e; retrieved 2026-09-20T20:40:33.373Z.