MIA05FA024 · SOCATA TB 20
SOCATA TB 20 · Accident: loss of control in flight en route
From Key West International Airport (KEYW) to Sarasota Bradenton International Airport (KSRQ)
Event
- NTSB case
- MIA05FA024
- 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
- 2 · 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
SOCATA TB 20
- Aircraft type
- Socata TB-20
- 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
- N1905S
- Operator
- Marc Paquin
- Onboard fatalities
- Unknown
- Route
- From Key West International Airport (KEYW), Key West, FLTo Sarasota Bradenton International Airport (KSRQ), Sarasota, 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
- En route · climb to cruise
- 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
- 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 › Aircraft control, not maintained
- Pilot in command › Spatial disorientation
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 departed with an IFR clearance from Runway 9, and after takeoff turned to a heading of 180 degrees and climbed to 1,900 feet. Approximately 25 seconds before the last radar target was recorded, the flight was cleared to turn right to a heading of 360 degrees. The recorded radar targets occurred every 12 seconds; there was no report of a failure or malfunction of the radar site at or after the last recorded radar target. There was no distress call made by the pilot. The airplane crashed into the Straits of Florida; the wreckage was located approximately .55 nautical mile and 278 degrees from the last recorded radar target. The fuselage and both wings were fragmented. No evidence of preimpact failure or malfunction was noted to the airframe, engine, or flight instruments. Additionally, no heat or fire damage was noted to any recovered piece of the wreckage. The airplane was equipped with a standby electrically controlled vacuum pump, and also a standby electrically operated attitude indicator installed on the co-pilot's side of the instrument panel. The pilot's and co-pilot's attitude indicators each powered by a separate source both depicted postaccident the airplane in a steep nose-down attitude and right bank angle of approximately 60 degrees. The turn coordinator also indicated a bank angle greater than standard rate. The tachometer and airspeed indications both exceeded maximum limitations. The instrument rated pilot had accumulated a total flight time of 829 hours, 16 hours of which were accumulated on the accident airplane from April to November of 2004. The pilot's most recent logbook could not be located and no information was obtained regarding the pilot's currency on flying by instruments. According to the aircraft logbook, a new engine-driven vacuum pump was installed in July 2003. Altimeter, automatic pressure altitude reporting system, and static pressure system inspections, as well as transponder inspections and tests due every 24 calendar months, were last recorded as occurring in October 2002. The airplane was scheduled for an annual inspection 4 days after the accident. Dark night conditions existed in the area where the airplane was lost from radar.
Probable cause
The pilot's failure to maintain aircraft control as a result of spatial disorientation. A related factor was the dark, night conditions.
Verbatim NTSB analysis and probable cause from the NTSB dataset
Sources
NTSB record MIA05FA024
- Event ID
- 20041110X01801
- Case number
- MIA05FA024
- 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 2004-11-05.
- API snapshot SHA-256: 2138bb0db5e02a000447fe87ebddf6a4769539ac3df57f698986f7634a9f166c; retrieved 2026-09-20T18:13:04.884Z.