MIA01LA208 · Morton S. Dismuke Spencer Amphib 1-12E
Morton S. Dismuke Spencer Amphib 1-12E · Accident: dragged wing, rotor, pod, float or tail/skid while taxiing
From 83J · Pensacola, FL to an unrecorded destination
Event
- NTSB case
- MIA01LA208
- 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
- 0 · 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
Morton S. Dismuke Spencer Amphib 1-12E
- Aircraft type
- Morton S Dismuke SPENCER AMPHIB 1-12E
- 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
- N112MD
- Operator
- Unknown
- Onboard fatalities
- Unknown
- Route
- From 83J · Pensacola, 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
- Taxi
- 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
- Dragged wing, rotor, pod, float or tail/skid
- DamageDestroyed: beyond practical repair. Substantial: damage that affects the structure, performance or handling and normally needs major repair. Minor: less than that. Glossary
- Substantial
Cause areas
- Reason for occurrence undetermined
Approximate · Coordinates from the NTSB case API, which marks them as estimated or does not say; no uncertainty radius is established.
NTSB narrative
The pilot stated they landed on Perdido and to perform water maneuvers. During the first water maneuver the airplane developed a tendency to turn to the right as it gained speed. On the second maneuver, at 20 to 25 knots, the airplane again started turning to the right. He reduced engine power to investigate what was wrong, and when he did the right wing went further into the water and the airplane turned over inverted. The left wing went into the water and contacted the bottom of the bay. Their intentions, had the accident not occurred, was to take off after high speed taxiing and return to Coastal Airport. Postcrash examination of the airplane by an FAA inspector showed the right float was damaged during the accident and it could not be determined what was causing the airplane to turn right during water operations..
Probable cause
The dragging of the right wing during water operations for undetermined reasons resulting in the airplane flipping inverted.
Verbatim NTSB analysis and probable cause from the NTSB dataset
Sources
NTSB record MIA01LA208
- Event ID
- 20010808X01630
- Case number
- MIA01LA208
- 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, coordinates. 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: a579f350186b88aa58dfce73b4613e75a29a177b4d3a6091813f064db84cecfe; retrieved 2026-09-22T11:41:26.648Z.