MIA06LA052 · Cessna 501
Cessna 501 · Accident: loss of control on ground/water during landing
From Columbia Metropolitan Airport (KCAE) to Treasure Coast International Airport (KFPR)
Event
- NTSB case
- MIA06LA052
- 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
Cessna 501
- Aircraft type
- Cessna 501
- 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
- N501DR
- Operator
- David Roeberg
- Onboard fatalities
- Unknown
- Route
- From Columbia Metropolitan Airport (KCAE), Columbia, SCTo Treasure Coast International Airport (KFPR), Fort Pierce, 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 · landing roll
- 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 on ground/water
- 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
- Landing gear, normal brake system › Binding(mechanical)
- Pilot in command › Directional control, not possible
Approximate · Coordinates from the NTSB case API, which marks them as estimated or does not say; no uncertainty radius is established.
NTSB narrative
During the landing roll, the pilot was unable to maintain directional control and the airplane swerved side-to side before going off the right side of the runway. The pilot said overhauled brake assemblies had been installed before the accident. He complained that the brakes felt "spongy" and the pedals went "almost to the floor, requiring two or three additional pumps for a hard pedal." He was told that this was "normal" since the airplane was not equipped with power brakes or anti-skid. The brakes were removed and sent to the overhaul facility. They found that both brake assemblies each had one return mechanism binding. The return mechanism had a self adjusting friction bushing meant to slip along the return pin at a predetermined spring pressure. As pressure was applied to the brake, the pressure plate extended toward the number one rotor, pulling the return pins through the swage and tube assemblies and compressing the return springs. Although the swage should move through the tube, one swage on each brake was not moving freely. The brake travel went further than normal because "normal travel" was never set.
Probable cause
mechanical binding of the normal brake system, rendering directional control impossible. Contributing factors were the improper overhaul, inadequate quality control procedures by the overhaul facility, and the rough terrain.
Verbatim NTSB analysis and probable cause from the NTSB dataset
Sources
NTSB record MIA06LA052
- Event ID
- 20060224X00231
- Case number
- MIA06LA052
- 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 2006-02-12.
- API snapshot SHA-256: d83221b588782244a171f097c87e5707867698e32ad1b8861dc2c61d52b5da28; retrieved 2026-09-22T05:06:50.344Z.