MIA07LA091 · Lee Stevens Sorrell SNS-2 Guppy
Lee Stevens Sorrell SNS-2 Guppy · Accident: loss of control in flight during initial climb
From Shoestring Aviation Airfield (0P2) to Baublitz Commercial Airport (9W8)
Event
- NTSB case
- MIA07LA091
- 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
- Visual Meteorological Cond
Lee Stevens Sorrell SNS-2 Guppy
- Aircraft type
- Lee Stevens SORRELL SNS-2 GUPPY
- 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
- UNREG
- Operator
- Arnold L. Yowell · private individual
- Onboard fatalities
- Unknown
- Route
- From Shoestring Aviation Airfield (0P2), Stewartstown, PATo Baublitz Commercial Airport (9W8), Brogue, PA
- 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
- 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
- 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 non-current pilot departed in the unregistered single seat airplane from runway 15, and a witness who was located at a hangar on the airfield reported that when the flight was past the departure end of the runway, the airplane turned onto a right crosswind leg. The airplane appeared to be flying slow, then "...nose down vertical into a spin, impacted vertically." Another witness who was driving on a nearby road reported seeing the airplane "...spiral down into the field." The airplane came to rest with the empennage elevated vertically and slightly twisted to the left. The fuselage was crushed to the instrument panel. Flight control continuity was confirmed for roll, and pitch; impact damage to the area of the rudder pedals precluded confirmation of control continuity for yaw. A total of 2.5 gallons of blue tinted 2 cycle fuel/oil mixture were drained from the 5.0 gallon fuel tank, which was free of contamination. One propeller blade was separated at the propeller hub and shattered, while the remaining blade remained secured inside the propeller hub. Examination of the engine revealed numerous discrepancies. A current weight and balance was not available with the installed engine and propeller, therefore, the exact weight and balance at the time of the accident was not determined.
Probable cause
The pilot's failure to maintain airspeed resulting in inadvertent stall. Contributing to the accident was the pilot's lack of experience in the airplane.
Verbatim NTSB analysis and probable cause from the NTSB dataset
Sources
NTSB record MIA07LA091
- Event ID
- 20070517X00573
- Case number
- MIA07LA091
- 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: 614129c367f990c68107c62b60a28faf3c98fe61d2bf4167676b468096a8c855; retrieved 2026-09-20T16:39:43.636Z.