MIA07CA128 · Engineering & Research Ercoupe 415-C
Engineering & Research Ercoupe 415-C · Accident: loss of control in flight on approach
From River Ranch Resort Airport (2RR) to Valkaria Airport (X59)
Event
- NTSB case
- MIA07CA128
- 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
Engineering & Research Ercoupe 415-C
- Aircraft type
- Engineering Research ERCOUPE 415
- 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
- N87026
- Operator
- Unknown
- Onboard fatalities
- Unknown
- Route
- From River Ranch Resort Airport (2RR), River Ranch, FLTo Valkaria Airport (X59), Valkaria, 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
- Approach · VFR pattern final
- 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 pilot stated that the flight was returning from a pleasure flight. He entered the traffic pattern for landing on runway 27; however, there was one airplane in the traffic pattern for runway 32. He was a little high on final approach and elected a go-around. He climbed to 800 feet and went to the shoreline, then reentered the traffic pattern for runway 27. The airplane was again high and when the flight was 1/2 way down the runway he performed a second go-around. This time he flew to the Indian River and returned for landing on runway 27. When the flight was over the numbers, he pulled aft on the yoke. He felt the airplane sinking when it was about 50 feet above the ground. He added full power, and about that time, the right wing stalled, the nose dropped, and right wing impacted the runway, followed by the nose. The airplane slid about 100 feet and was facing 90 degrees from the original flight path before it came to a stop. The pilot and passenger exited the airplane without assistance. The pilot stated there were no mechanical failures or malfunctions to the airplane or any of its systems prior to the accident.
Probable cause
The pilot's failure to maintain airspeed which resulted in an inadvertent stall and subsequent collision with the runway.
Verbatim NTSB analysis and probable cause from the NTSB dataset
Sources
NTSB record MIA07CA128
- Event ID
- 20070911X01358
- Case number
- MIA07CA128
- 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: a4a76bb359fd1db929f627c44cde4e77445fdcf38cca7c5e4b04838ff918cb51; retrieved 2026-09-21T18:26:13.047Z.