MIA03FA065 · Aerofab, Inc. Lake 250
Aerofab, Inc. Lake 250 · Accident: in flight collision with terrain/water during landing
From Leeward Air Ranch Airport (FD04) to Weirsdale, FL
Event
- NTSB case
- MIA03FA065
- 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
Aerofab, Inc. Lake 250
- Aircraft type
- Aerofab LAKE 250
- 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
- N811JG
- Operator
- Unknown
- Onboard fatalities
- Unknown
- Route
- From Leeward Air Ranch Airport (FD04), Ocala, FLTo Weirsdale, 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
- Landing · flare/touchdown
- 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 terrain/water
- 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 › Flare, inadequate
Approximate · Coordinates from the NTSB case API, which marks them as estimated or does not say; no uncertainty radius is established.
NTSB narrative
After departure the flight proceeded to Lake Weir where a witness who observed the airplane on approach to land on the lake reported the approach was smooth. He further reported that the airplane, "bump once on water then nose dove." A pilot-rated individual who was on-scene an estimated 10 minutes after the accident reported the water surface conditions as "glassy", "placid" and "...very little surface ripples or waves." The airplane submerged and came to rest inverted in about 13 feet of water. The engine with attached propeller separated from the airfame, but was recovered along with the wreckage. The engine with attached propeller was placed on a test stand, started, and found to develope full static rpm; no discrepancies were noted. Examination of the airplane revealed the landing gear was retracted, and no evidence of preimpact failure or malfunction of the flight controls for roll, pitch, or yaw was noted. The on-board electronic tachometer was retained for readout which revealed the last recorded rpm was 2,600, which occurred sometime within 3 minutes of the accident.
Probable cause
The inadequate flare by the pilot-in-command on the calm water resulting in the in-flight collision with the water and subsequent nose over.
Verbatim NTSB analysis and probable cause from the NTSB dataset
Sources
NTSB record MIA03FA065
- Event ID
- 20030225X00259
- Case number
- MIA03FA065
- 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: fcf8630ea647c15c9f80a1b071f8e6fc81de70c86d85a73867b28b14dd4c873f; retrieved 2026-09-20T19:27:30.582Z.