MIA02LA046 · Cessna 172M
Phil Air Cessna 172M · Accident: loss of control in flight during initial climb
From Daytona Beach International Airport (DAB) to New Smyrna Beach Municipal Airport (EVB)
Event
- NTSB case
- MIA02LA046
- 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
Cessna 172M
- Aircraft type
- Cessna 172
- 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
- N9882V
- Operator
- Phil Air
- Onboard fatalities
- Unknown
- Route
- From Daytona Beach International Airport (DAB), Daytona Beach, FLTo New Smyrna Beach Municipal Airport (EVB), New Smyrna Beach, 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
- Initial climb
- 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
- 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
- Substantial
Cause areas
- Pilot in command › Airspeed(vs), not maintained
Approximate · Coordinates from the NTSB case API, which marks them as estimated or does not say; no uncertainty radius is established.
NTSB narrative
Witnesses heard the airplane in the traffic pattern, and heard power being applied to the engine. The witnesses reported hearing engine sounds until just prior to impact. The airplane impacted nose first near a taxiway between runways. The pilot, stated he thought he was around 150' to 200' above ground level, when the aircraft started to shake. He didn't think there was anything wrong with the aircraft prior to impact. The pilot did not recall hearing the stall warning horn. The female passenger told rescue personnel they had just gotten off the ground when the plane started to shake. Only slight ground scaring that was consistent with the wing tips, were found near the initial impact point. In addition, the tail surfaces were not damaged, fuel was present in the left wing, the right wing fuel tank was ruptured, and the fuel selector was found in the "BOTH" position. The engine was disassembly and revealed no discrepancies. Control system continuity was established, and the flap motor indicated that the flaps were in the full up position. The stall warning horn was found operable. The pilot had a total of 200 flight hours, of which 100 were in this make and model airplane, and about 3 hours of night flight hours.
Probable cause
the failure of the pilot to maintain airspeed, during initial climb out, which resulted in an inadvertent stall, and subsequent impact with the terrain.
Verbatim NTSB analysis and probable cause from the NTSB dataset
Sources
NTSB record MIA02LA046
- Event ID
- 20011221X02431
- Case number
- MIA02LA046
- 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 2001-12-19.
- API snapshot SHA-256: a6253f24fbbcaa3e2580a44fe7a5e875464ff54b43a4133b34b829c08095394e; retrieved 2026-09-21T09:42:50.694Z.