ERA12FA052 · Interplane S R O SKYBOY
Interplane S R O SKYBOY · Accident: loss of control in flight while maneuvering
From Richards Field (04FA) to Richards Field (04FA)
Event
- NTSB case
- ERA12FA052
- 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
Interplane S R O SKYBOY
- Aircraft type
- Interplane SKYBOY
- 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
- N58784
- Operator
- Unknown
- Onboard fatalities
- Unknown
- Route
- From Richards Field (04FA), Miami, FLTo Richards Field (04FA), Miami, 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 · low-altitude flying
- 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
- Loss of control in flight
- 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
Before the accident, the pilot had modified the airplane by installing vortex generators onto the airplane's wings. Following the installation, the pilot made an uneventful flight, and, shortly after, he departed on the accident flight. Several witnesses reported seeing the airplane, after a brief flight in the local area, flying directly over the airport at a very low speed. One witness reported that the airplane appeared to enter an aerodynamic stall and a left spin and then impacted the ground.
Postaccident examination of the wreckage revealed that the left elevator trim tab upper control cable exhibited significant corrosion and had separated. A detailed examination of the cable and the separation fracture surfaces revealed the presence of significant, unabated corrosion, which had resulted in the cable losing an estimated 90 percent of its strength before ultimately failing in overload. However, it could not be determined whether the failure of this cable occurred before, or as a result of, the airplane's impact with terrain or, what effect, if any, the in-flight failure of this cable could have had on the controllability of the airplane. The wreckage examination did not reveal any other evidence of preimpact mechanical discrepancies or malfunctions that would have prevented normal operation of the engine and airframe components. No evidence was found indicating whether the pilot had intended to perform or had completed a structured flight test of the airplane's performance following the installation of the vortex generators in accordance with its operating limitations (outside of the single, 7-minute solo flight that immediately preceded the accident flight) before operating a flight with a passenger onboard.
Probable cause
The pilot’s failure to maintain control of the airplane while flying at low speed, which resulted in a subsequent aerodynamic stall, spin, and impact with terrain. Contributing to the outcome of the accident was the pilot’s decision to operate the airplane with a passenger aboard before fully evaluating the airplane’s handling characteristics after vortex generators were installed.
Verbatim NTSB analysis and probable cause from the NTSB dataset
Sources
NTSB record ERA12FA052
- Event ID
- 20111029X13450
- Case number
- ERA12FA052
- 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: 639438ddd5101f19f981850f5072e254e14b7f754832e7f31afea4befbe20a9e; retrieved 2026-09-13T21:56:52.968Z.