MIA03LA045 · Bornhofen Twinjet 1500
Bornhofen Twinjet 1500 · Accident: in flight collision with object on approach
From Melbourne Orlando International Airport (KMLB) to an unrecorded destination
Event
- NTSB case
- MIA03LA045
- 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
- 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
Bornhofen Twinjet 1500
- Aircraft type
- Bornhofen TWINJET 1500
- 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
- N750TJ
- Operator
- Unknown
- Onboard fatalities
- Unknown
- Route
- From Melbourne Orlando International Airport (KMLB), Melbourne, 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
- Approach · VFR pattern base
- 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
- Tree(s)
- 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 › Altitude/clearance, not obtained
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 reported a problem with the landing gear after takeoff, and had asked the tower to check the position of the landing gear. On the first pass the gear was partially extended, on the second pass the gear appeared to be fully retracted. The pilot informed the tower that he would make an intentional gear-up landing between the taxiway and the runway to the grass. The airplane was observed at an altitude below the height of the control tower. All the witnesses interviewed agreed that the aircraft was never higher than 200 to 300 feet, more like tree top level, and was pitching and banking very steeply in turns. On the final circuit the pilot reported that he was having trim problems, and that he would now land on runway 9L. As the aircraft approached the base leg to final turn the tower operator momentarily diverted his attention away from the aircraft. When he looked up the aircraft was gone and smoke was rising from the crash site. Examination of the wreckage after the crash revealed no discrepancies. A witness revealed that the pilot was reported to have been sick with flu like ailments for at least a week prior to the accident. The day prior to the accident the pilot was scheduled to fly the aircraft for testing, and appeared so ill that he was instructed to go home. Toxicological tests on the pilot-in-command, revealed that Salicylate [and] Pseudoephedrine were detected in Urine, "61.54 (ug/ml, ug/g).
Probable cause
the pilot-in-command failed to obtain sufficient altitude to clear obstacles at the approach end of the airport which resulted in an in-flight collision with trees.
Verbatim NTSB analysis and probable cause from the NTSB dataset
Sources
NTSB record MIA03LA045
- Event ID
- 20030129X00124
- Case number
- MIA03LA045
- 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: 6d9f89a0e235dae64e4f1792074ca21b62a71e41067b43c749c018ee69df4cde; retrieved 2026-09-20T19:31:05.830Z.