MIA07LA081 · Cessna U206G
Cessna U206G · Accident: in flight collision with object during initial climb
From Mount Royal Airport (3FL0) to Lakeland Linder International Airport (LAL)
Event
- NTSB case
- MIA07LA081
- 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
- Instrument Meteorological Cond
Cessna U206G
- Aircraft type
- Cessna 206
- 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
- N2874B
- Operator
- Paul Wilcox
- Onboard fatalities
- Unknown
- Route
- From Mount Royal Airport (3FL0), Welaka, FLTo Lakeland Linder International Airport (LAL), Lakeland, 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
- Initial climb
- 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 object
- 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
- Visual flight rules (VFR) flight into instrument meteorological conditions (IMC); Utility pole
- 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 › Clearance, not maintained
- Pilot in command › VFR flight into imc, continued
Approximate · Coordinates from the NTSB case API, which marks them as estimated or does not say; no uncertainty radius is established.
NTSB narrative
The commercial pilot and his pilot-rated passenger were taking off from a private airpark under visual flight rules in fog and haze. A witness observed the airplane after takeoff flying "too low," then striking a 130-foot utility pole and wires located about 0.6 nautical miles southwest of the airpark. The witness also stated, "There was no failed engine, no putter, no sputter." Examination of the wreckage revealed no evidence of a mechanical malfunction or failure. Both pilots flew together frequently and were familiar with the airpark.
Probable cause
The pilot's continued visual flight into instrument meteorological conditions and his failure to maintain clearance from utility poles. Contributing to the accident were the fog and haze.
Verbatim NTSB analysis and probable cause from the NTSB dataset
Sources
NTSB record MIA07LA081
- Event ID
- 20070427X00462
- Case number
- MIA07LA081
- 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: bc65c99bcf567b19aad2b4fa38841f0802c4db20f948e0f94b3c6fa9a6461148; retrieved 2026-09-20T16:43:27.829Z.