NTSB CAROL · Event
Event ERA25LA278
Registry · N974FL
FAA Aircraft Registry record.
Make / Model
ORLICAN S R O M-8 EAGLE
Year of manufacture
2023 · 2 years old at event
Engine
ROTAX 912ULS SERIES (100 hp)
Seats / Engines
2 seats · 1 engine
Last airworthiness date
20231219
ADS-B equipped
Yes — Mode-S AD9309
Registrant of record
VALIAIR LC TRUSTEE
Source: FAA Aircraft Registry (releasable master file).
Aircraft involved
Factual narrative
On July 28, 2025, about 16:24 eastern daylight time, an Orlican M-8, N974FL, was substantially damaged when it was involved in an accident near Lake Worth Beach, Florida. The flight instructor sustained minor injuries, the private pilot sustained no injuries, and five people on the ground sustained minor injuries. The airplane was operated as a Title 14 Code of Federal Regulations Part 91 flight test. The pilot/owner reported that he had brought the airplane to the United States to have maintenance completed. During the maintenance work a new propeller was installed and the accident flight was a test flight with the pilot/owner and a flight instructor where they would calibrate the new propeller. The pilot/owner continued that after departing runway 10 at Palm Beach County Park Airport (LNA), West Palm Beach, Florida, about a minute into the flight they experienced a total loss of engine power. They performed a forced landing to a roadway near a park during which the airplane struck a tree and a vehicle on the roadway resulting in substantial damage to the fuselage, both wings, engine mount, and empennage. Postaccident examination of the airplane found there were about 27 gallons of 100LL aviation fuel present between both the wing fuel tanks. Postaccident photos showed that the electric fuel pump switch, avionics switch, and strobe switch were in the ON position. The pilot/owner reported that the airplane was usually used for “island hopping” in the Caribbean and that he would bring to the United States to have maintenance work completed. The airplane was retained for further examination. Source: NTSB Aviation Accident Database Retrieved: 2026-02-12
Verbatim from NTSB's published report. Source file
NTSB_2025_ERA25LA278.txt.
Findings + structured fields enriched from FAA avall.mdb.
Full investigation docket on
data.ntsb.gov ↗.
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Related research
What the literature says.
Academic papers and agency reports matching this event's aircraft type or causal vocabulary (stall, maintenance). Sourced from NASA NTRS, NTSB Safety Studies, FAA CAMI, AOPA Air Safety Institute, Embry-Riddle Scholarly Commons, arXiv, and the Semantic Scholar academic graph.
- Embry-Riddle Scholarly Commons 2023 · Conference paper
The Value of Strong Partnerships to Build a Successful Aviation Maintenance Career Pathway Program for Transitioning Military Service Members
The aerospace industry is competing with other industries for a qualified workforce, and many of those competing industries are investing heavily in creating workforce development pipelines.
- Embry-Riddle Scholarly Commons 2026 · Journal article (IJAAA)
From Reactive to Predictive: A hybrid Trust-Mediated Adoption Framework for Data-Driven Maintenance in Distributed-Authority Aviation Environments
Modern aviation maintenance operates within increasingly data-intensive technological environments, yet the operational integration of predictive maintenance into routine decision-making remains incon…
- NASA NTRS 2026 · Conference Paper
Computational Analysis of Steady State Aerodynamics of Transonic Truss-Braced Wing Configuration in Deep Stall
This study presents a computational investigation of steady state aerodynamics of the Subsonic Ultra-Green Aircraft Research (SUGAR) Transonic Truss-Braced Wing (TTBW) configuration over a wide range …
- Semantic Scholar 2025 · Article (Applied Sciences)
Decision-Making Framework for Aviation Safety in Predictive Maintenance Strategies
The implementation of predictive maintenance (PM) in aviation presents unique challenges due to strict safety requirements, complex operational environments, and regulatory constraints.
- Embry-Riddle Scholarly Commons 2024 · Journal article (JAAER)
Low-Resource Automatic Speech Recognition Domain Adaptation – A Case-Study in Aviation Maintenance
With timeliness and efficiency being critical in the aviation maintenance industry, the need has been growing for smart technological solutions that optimize and streamline the different underlying ta…
- Embry-Riddle Scholarly Commons 2024 · Journal article (JAAER)
A New Trajectory in UAV Safety: Leveraging Reinforcement Learning for Distance Maintenance Under Wind Variations
In the field of aviation, safety is a critical cornerstone, and the operation of Unmanned Aerial Vehicle (UAV) systems is deeply connected with this principle.
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