ERA13FA071 · Green Gary E THORP T-18
Green Gary E THORP T-18 · Accident en route
From Pompano Beach Airpark (PMP) to Lakeland Linder International Airport (LAL)
Event
- NTSB case
- ERA13FA071
- 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
- 1 · 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
Green Gary E THORP T-18
- Aircraft type
- Green Gary THORP T-18
- 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
- N118GG
- Operator
- David E Flatter · private individual
- Onboard fatalities
- Unknown
- Route
- From Pompano Beach Airpark (PMP), Pompano Beach, FLTo Lakeland Linder International Airport (LAL), Lakeland, FL
- Aircraft age
- About 32 years (built 1980)
- 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
- En route · descent
- 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
- Unknown or undetermined
- 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
- Aircraft › Aircraft structures
- Personnel issues › Task performance
Approximate · Coordinates from the NTSB case API, not marked as estimated; no uncertainty radius is established.
NTSB narrative
Family members reported the airplane overdue for arrival, so an alert notice was issued. The local authorities located the airplane the following day. Air traffic control records indicate that, during the accident flight, the pilot was operating under visual flight rules while receiving radar traffic advisory service from an air traffic controller. The air traffic controller noticed a potential conflict with a Boeing 757 and acted to maintain traffic separation by instructing the 757 pilot to maintain 8,000 feet, asking the accident pilot to maintain at or below 7,500 feet, and providing a wake turbulence cautionary advisory. The accident airplane was at 7,800 feet at the time, and the pilot advised that he was descending to comply with the controller's instructions. When the two aircraft were separated horizontally by about 1 to 2 miles, the accident pilot reported the 757 in sight. Radar data indicated that the accident airplane passed directly beneath the Boeing 757, within 500 feet of vertical separation, traveling in roughly the opposite direction. Although the geometry and the timing of the airplane's passing each other suggest the possibility of a wake turbulence encounter, the accident pilot made no comment about encountering turbulence. Although radar data showed the accident airplane turning left as if to get out from under the 757's flight track, it then turned back to the right and continued climbing on a northwesterly heading for about 2 1/2 minutes until reaching 8,300 feet. The airplane then turned right and descended to 7,200 feet before it was lost from radar. During the descent, the wings separated from the airplane due to overstress in a positive direction. The reason for the descent and in-flight overstress of the airplane could not be determined. The two aircraft were operating in class E airspace, and Federal Aviation Administration directives do not require 1,000-feet separation for aircraft in this airspace.
Probable cause
The descent and overstress of the airplane during the descent, which resulted in the in-flight breakup of the airplane.
Verbatim NTSB analysis and probable cause from the NTSB dataset
Sources
NTSB record ERA13FA071
- Event ID
- 20121203X00941
- Case number
- ERA13FA071
- 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, 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: cc5aa8d33ef671297c4d52ad750c521aee3dff971fe7140b36664fbf11a5b257; retrieved 2026-09-14T15:49:50.653Z.