MIA07CA104 · Cessna 170B
Cessna 170B · Accident: loss of control on ground/water during landing
From President Donald J. Trump International Airport (KPBI) to Palm Beach County Glades Airport (KPHK)
Event
- NTSB case
- MIA07CA104
- 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 170B
- Aircraft type
- Cessna 170
- 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
- N1767D
- Operator
- Frank Johnston Finley
- Onboard fatalities
- Unknown
- Route
- From President Donald J. Trump International Airport (KPBI), Palm Beach, FLTo Palm Beach County Glades Airport (KPHK), Phokee, 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 · flare/touchdown
- 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
- Pilot in command › Directional control, 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 that he asked for an airport advisory, but was only given the suggested runway. He saw the winds were nearly the same direction as runway 35 in a nearby dike. On short final he observed the wind sock. He had no idea of how strong the winds were but the wind sock was full and coming from the right. Just before touchdown he realized it was too strong and added full power with carburetor heat on and one notch of flaps. He came in right wing low with lots of rudder. He touched down on the right wheel first, but the right wing lifted and the left wheel hit followed by the left wing scraping the pavement. The aircraft was now headed about 15-degrees to the left. The side loads caused the right wheel and wing to come down hard. The right wheel folded under the left side of the airframe. The airplane then slid to a stop on a 15-degree heading to the left of the runway heading. He reported he had no mechanical failures or malfunctions with the aircraft. The winds recorded at West Palm Beach, Florida about the time of the accident were from 090 degrees at 13 knots, with gusts to 18 knots. West Palm Beach is located about 34 nm east of Pahokee.
Probable cause
The pilot's failure to maintain directional control during a crosswind landing.
Verbatim NTSB analysis and probable cause from the NTSB dataset
Sources
NTSB record MIA07CA104
- Event ID
- 20070828X01260
- Case number
- MIA07CA104
- 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: 2fee3f7373752c886d92333b3e14bbfb6e2d4b3b262bfd91cdb351d4613c5616; retrieved 2026-09-22T03:47:48.076Z.