MIA03FA046 · Cessna M337B (O-2A)
Cessna M337B (O-2A) · Accident: loss of control in flight while maneuvering
From 55J · FERNANDINA BCH, FL to an unrecorded destination
Event
- NTSB case
- MIA03FA046
- 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
- 4 · 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 M337B (O-2A)
- Aircraft type
- Cessna 337
- 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
- N52513
- Operator
- Unknown
- Onboard fatalities
- Unknown
- Route
- From 55J · FERNANDINA BCH, 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
- 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
- Destroyed
Cause areas
- Pilot in command › Airspeed, not maintained
- Pilot in command › Stall, inadvertent
Approximate · Coordinates from the NTSB case API, which marks them as estimated or does not say; no uncertainty radius is established.
NTSB narrative
The airplane was 7 miles off shore when it collided in a steep angle with water during an aerial survey of whales. The survey was to be done in accordance with a grid pattern, at an altitude of 1000 feet. Once whales were spotted, the flight would descend to 500 to 750 feet, with flaps extended to 10 to 20 degrees, and right turns using a 45-degree bank would be conducted. According to recorded radar data, the flight departed from the grid pattern and did right circling turns in a one mile radius at 1000 feet. The flight descended and leveled at 800 feet before descending to 500 feet with a ground speed of 61 knots last recorded. Toxicological testing on the pilot revealed: 0.008 ug/ml dextromethorphan detected in blood, dextromethorphan present in urine, ephedrine detected in blood and urine, phenylpropanolamine detected in urine, pseudoephedrine detected in blood and urine. The presence of these drugs indicated the pilot likely used at least one medication for upper respiratory symptoms and one herbal supplement (possibly ephedra) within the 24 hours preceding the accident; however, the pilot was probably not impaired by these substances.
Probable cause
The pilot's failure to maintain airspeed while maneuvering at low altitude, which resulted in an inadvertent stall and subsequent collision with the ocean.
Verbatim NTSB analysis and probable cause from the NTSB dataset
Sources
NTSB record MIA03FA046
- Event ID
- 20030205X00163
- Case number
- MIA03FA046
- 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: d359a8a01869d6fd9ab9d36f36abf80cfe57bed7aa113928759c26897f81d4d0; retrieved 2026-09-20T19:29:38.145Z.