ERA10LA266 · Aerostar S A YAK-52
Aerostar S A YAK-52 · Accident: low altitude operation/event while maneuvering
From Witham Field (SUA) to Witham Field (SUA)
Event
- NTSB case
- ERA10LA266
- 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
- 2 · 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
Aerostar S A YAK-52
- Aircraft type
- Aerostar YAK-52
- 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
- N6868Y
- Operator
- Unknown
- Onboard fatalities
- Unknown
- Route
- From Witham Field (SUA), Stuart, FLTo Witham Field (SUA), Stuart, 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
- Maneuvering · aerobatics
- 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
- Low altitude operation/event
- 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 › Action/decision
Approximate · Coordinates as recorded by the NTSB; no uncertainty radius is established.
NTSB narrative
After takeoff from a nearby airport, the pilot of the accident airplane commenced a series of aerobatic maneuvers at low altitude along a beach. Witnesses observed the airplane flying along the beach about 100 yards offshore in a northerly direction, descending from approximately 300 feet to approximately 50 feet above the water. It next entered a very abrupt and steep turn to the northeast, then went straight up while continuing to turn until it rolled out on a westerly heading toward a cluster of condominiums that lined the beach. The airplane once again made a sharp turn to the right (northbound), then pitched up sharply until it was upside down. It then pitched down, rolled about its longitudinal axis, and impacted the water nose first.
A postaccident examination of the wreckage revealed no evidence of any preimpact failure or malfunction of the airplane or engine. Both the Federal Aviation Administration and the International Aerobatic Club consider the minimum altitude for aerobatic maneuvers to be 1,500 feet, which the pilot was well below when he commenced the maneuvers. Examination of a landing gear down light bulb revealed filament stretching, which indicated that the light bulb was energized prior to the airplane's impact with the water. Review of photographs taken of the airplane a few minutes prior to the accident and moments before it impacted the water, confirmed that the landing gear was extended. Review of the airplane’s pilot operating handbook revealed that the landing gear was supposed to be raised after takeoff and that the pilot was supposed to check for a landing gear up indication. The extended landing gear would have affected the airplane's performance and would have made the airplane slower to respond to the pilot's inputs. This, in combination with his decision to commence the aerobatic maneuvers at low altitude, resulted in his inability to recover prior to impacting the water.
Probable cause
The pilot's decision to perform an aerobatic maneuver at a low altitude, which resulted in insufficient clearance from the water to conduct a recovery. Contributing to the accident was the airplane’s extended landing gear, which resulted in a degradation of the airplane's performance.
Verbatim NTSB analysis and probable cause from the NTSB dataset
Sources
NTSB record ERA10LA266
- Event ID
- 20100516X52337
- Case number
- ERA10LA266
- 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: 3ac7577ee433ba5a5fe624f89252065aed3e64cb3eea3f5635288c0d1981bf87; retrieved 2026-09-13T20:48:25.496Z.