MIA05CA163 · Piper PA-25-235
Piper PA-25-235 · Accident: loss of control in flight while maneuvering
From North Perry Airport (KHWO) to an unrecorded destination
Event
- NTSB case
- MIA05CA163
- 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
Piper PA-25-235
- Aircraft type
- Piper PA-25
- 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
- N7788Z
- Operator
- Unknown
- Onboard fatalities
- Unknown
- Route
- From North Perry Airport (KHWO), Pembrook Pine, 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/mush
- 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, 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
The pilot stated he departed from the North Perry Airport and proceeded toward the Opa Locka Airport to pick up his first banner of the day. He noted thunderstorms in the area but their banner operations were still ongoing. Two of his coworkers picked up their banner before him. He deployed the hook and flew the pattern for the pick up. Upon approaching the poles, he applied full engine power and picked up the rope. He pulled up and upon the ground crew signaling that the banner is about to be lifted, he proceeded to lower the nose of the airplane, which was about 175 feet above the ground. At that point, instead of the usual leveling off, the airplane started to sink and upon picking up the banner, the sink rate accelerated rapidly. He waited about 2 seconds for things to normalize while ensuring all engine levers were in the full power position. The sink rate kept the same. By now he was sure that a hard landing was imminent so he released the banner and landed straight ahead.
Probable cause
The pilot's failure to maintain airspeed, during a banner pick up, resulting in a stall/mush and collision with terrain during the uncontrolled descent.
Verbatim NTSB analysis and probable cause from the NTSB dataset
Sources
NTSB record MIA05CA163
- Event ID
- 20051013X01637
- Case number
- MIA05CA163
- 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: bf759176b6a1295b618d81fa346f6383493837955bd6332199a01a82cdeb53bd; retrieved 2026-09-22T05:20:26.247Z.