MIA08FA038 · Cessna 172L
Cessna 172L · Accident: aerodynamic stall/spin on approach
From Venice Municipal Airport (KVNC) to St. Petersburg Clearwater International Airport (PIE)
Event
- NTSB case
- MIA08FA038
- 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
- 3 · 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 172L
- Aircraft type
- Cessna 172
- 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
- N7100Q
- Operator
- Joseph P. Bellamy · private individual
- Onboard fatalities
- Unknown
- Route
- From Venice Municipal Airport (KVNC), Venice, FLTo St. Petersburg Clearwater International Airport (PIE), Clearwater, 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
- Defining eventThe 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
- Aerodynamic stall/spin
- 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
- Aircraft › Aircraft oper/perf/capability
- Personnel issues › Task performance
Approximate · Coordinates as recorded by the NTSB; no uncertainty radius is established.
NTSB narrative
The private-certificated pilot was on the return leg in the Cessna 172L airplane, and at the time of the accident, was operating the airplane 24 pounds above the design gross weight. When near the destination airport, air traffic control (ATC) advised the pilot to expect a left downwind for runway 22, which the pilot acknowledged. The flight proceeded towards the destination airport and the pilot was cleared to land on runway 22. The pilot entered what appeared to be the downwind leg for runway 22, but turned left onto final approach for runway 27, and was asked by the controller if he was lined up for runway 22. The pilot responded with, "zero zero quebec sorry about that." Witnesses and the controller noted an abrupt right turn, followed by the airplane stalling and impacting water short of the runway. Examination of the airplane and the flight controls revealed no evidence of preimpact failure or malfunction. The engine was started and operated normally.
Probable cause
The pilot's failure to maintain airspeed while maneuvering for approach to land. Contributing to the accident was the pilot's operation of the airplane above the design gross weight.
Verbatim NTSB analysis and probable cause from the NTSB dataset
Sources
NTSB record MIA08FA038
- Event ID
- 20080123X00090
- Case number
- MIA08FA038
- Dataset
- full-current
- Source SHA-256
- 5cf380f0061817c0331a6b2d8cc7e0ee3a79bea469a1001dc5c10e56f35f5ab3
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. 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: 382697bbba1b926b40aba56652164ee64d1b5a5d712dd27915c9af851576bc4a; retrieved 2026-09-13T18:53:42.351Z.