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Atlas / NTSB / MIA94LA128

NTSB CAROL · Event

Event MIA94LA128

1994-04-29 MERRITT ISLAND, Florida, United States Airport · COI Minor 1 aircraft Status: Completed

Aircraft involved

Probable cause & findings

THE PILOT-IN-COMMAND'S INADEQUATE FUEL CONSUMPTION CALCULATIONS AND INADEQUATE IN-FLIGHT PLANNING WHEN ENCOUNTERING A HEADWIND.

Factual narrative

On April 29, 1994, about 1345 eastern daylight time, N692KA, a homebuilt Sabre II crashed in Merritt Island, Florida, after experiencing an engine failure in flight, while on a 14 CFR Part 91 instructional flight. Visual meteorological conditions prevailed and no flight plan was filed. The instructor pilot and the pilot-rated passenger received minor injuries and the airplane was substantially damaged. The flight originated at Titusville, Florida, at an unknown time. The instructor pilot stated to the local law enforcement and the NTSB that they had encountered headwinds and ran out of fuel. The engine failed and they executed a forced landing to a field and hit a chain link fence and a tree. THE PILOT AND PILOT-RATED PASSENGER DEPARTED ON A LOCAL FLIGHT WITH FULL FUEL. ON RETURN, THE PILOT ENCOUNTERED STRONGER THAN EXPECTED WINDS ALOFT, AND THE ENGINE FAILED DUE TO FUEL EXHAUSTION. THE PILOT EXECUTED A FORCED LANDING AND WHILE ROLLING TO A STOP, THE AIRPLANE COLLIDED WITH A FENCE AND WAS SUBSTANTIALLY DAMAGED. Source: NTSB Aviation Accident Database (Pre-2008 Archive) Retrieved: 2026-02-12

Verbatim from NTSB's published report. Source file NTSB_1994_MIA94LA128.txt. Findings + structured fields enriched from FAA avall.mdb. Full investigation docket on data.ntsb.gov ↗.

Related research

What the literature says.

Academic papers and agency reports matching this event's aircraft type or causal vocabulary (fuel exhaustion, engine failure). Sourced from NASA NTRS, NTSB Safety Studies, FAA CAMI, AOPA Air Safety Institute, Embry-Riddle Scholarly Commons, arXiv, and the Semantic Scholar academic graph.

Browse the full corpus — academia portal ↗