MIA07FA154 · North American Navion

The instrument rated pilot who had not logged any actual instrument flight time did not obtain any preflight weather briefing with either Lockheed Martin FSS or DUATS. Instrument meteorological conditions (IMC) due to low ceilings and visibility were forecast to exist between the departure airport and the crash site location, though VFR conditions existed at the destination airport at both the departure time and estimated time of arrival. The flight departed under VFR, and proceeded in a northeasterly direction to a point approximately 59 nautical miles north-northeast from the departure airport where it was identified on radar. The flight was observed on radar for 55 nautical miles, and never flew higher than 800 feet pressure altitude. The flight continued in a northeasterly direction gradually descending while the terrain elevation gradually increased. A ceiling of broken clouds at 400 feet above ground level (agl) was noted at an airport 21 nautical miles from the crash site. For the last 9 minutes 31 seconds of the flight, the ground speed never decreased less than 110 knots. The airplane descended to 265 feet agl, and at the last radar return, which was located 0.18 nautical miles from the crash site, the ground speed was 130 knots. While approaching an antenna tower and water tower which were ahead of the flight path and 215 and 185 feet agl, respectively, the pilot banked hard to the right, and with the engine operating at approximately 2,300 rpm, the airplane impacted the parking lot of a restaurant. The airplane crashed into the restaurant, and was fragmented. A fire erupted at impact and the restaurant sustained impact and fire damage. Examination of the airframe, flight controls, engine, engine accessories, and propeller revealed no evidence of preimpact failure or malfunction.

Verbatim NTSB analysis and probable cause from the NTSB dataset