MIA06FA008 · Cessna P337H
Cessna P337H · Accident: in flight encounter with weather en route
From Boca Raton Airport (BCT) to Myrtle Beach International Airport (MYR)
Event
- NTSB case
- MIA06FA008
- 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
- Instrument Meteorological Cond
Cessna P337H
- 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
- N5HU
- Operator
- Unknown
- Onboard fatalities
- Unknown
- Route
- From Boca Raton Airport (BCT), Boca Raton, FLTo Myrtle Beach International Airport (MYR), Myrtle Beach, SC
- 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 · 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
- In flight encounter with weather
- 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 › Flight into known adverse weather, continued
Approximate · Coordinates from the NTSB case API, which marks them as estimated or does not say; no uncertainty radius is established.
NTSB narrative
While on an IFR flight, the pilot was advised by the controller of an area of moderate to heavy precipitation at his twelve o-clock position five miles ahead. The pilot stated he would deviate around the weather on a 300 degree heading. Examination of recorded display data showed that when the pilot advised that he would be turning to a 300 degree heading to avoid weather, the controller's display was showing moderate (Level 2) and heavy (Level 3 to 4) and intense to extreme (Level 5 to 6) weather in that direction. The controller did not advise the pilot of the depicted weather as required by FAA Order 7110.65, paragraph 2-6-4, "Weather and Chaff Services." Review of weather radar images confirmed that shortly thereafter, the airplane penetrated an intense Level 5 thunderstorm. About 1 minute after the heading change, the pilot asked the controller if his heading was clear of weather, to which the controller responded that he could not suggest any headings. About 2 minutes later, the pilot asked the controller if there was weather ahead of him, and the controller did not respond. About 30 seconds later, the pilot again asked about weather in front of him and reported he was in "difficult shape." The controller responded that he showed the airplane encountering "extreme precipitation" and asked the pilot his intentions. The pilot requested a heading and the controller responded with a suggestion that the pilot turn 20 degrees right. The pilot acknowledged and shortly thereafter, the airplane entered a rapid descent. Several witnesses stated that they saw the airplane emerge from the clouds at an altitude of about 300 feet, on its side, and descending. They observed the airplane maneuvering erratically before it descended and impacted a house at a steep angle. A fire erupted, which destroyed the house and the airplane. According to witnesses "bad weather" was present in the area at the time of the accident, with heavy rain and lightning being observed. A Convective SIGMET was current for an area of thunderstorms with tops to 40,000 feet, moving little.
Probable cause
The pilot's continued flight into an area of known convective weather, resulting in a loss of aircraft control. Contributing factors were the failure of the FAA center controller to provide information on depicted severe weather to the pilot and the controller's delay in providing requested navigational assistance until it was too late to provide the pilot with effective assistance in avoiding severe weather.
Verbatim NTSB analysis and probable cause from the NTSB dataset
Sources
NTSB record MIA06FA008
- Event ID
- 20051028X01748
- Case number
- MIA06FA008
- 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: b23a260140b20abfe858936f056634bbba22b59deba9c15a1e6e1386890c842e; retrieved 2026-09-20T17:48:06.820Z.