NTSB CAROL · Event
Event MIA94LA193
Aircraft involved
Probable cause & findings
THE IMPROPER MAINTENANCE WORK DONE ON THE CARBURETOR BY A LOCAL MECHANIC THAT RESULTED IN LOSS OF ENGINE POWER OVER UNSUITABLE TERRAIN. A CONTRIBUTING FACTOR WAS THE DIRT AND MOISTURE THAT CONTAMINATED THE CARBURETOR.
Factual narrative
On August 10, 1994, about 1730 easter daylight time, N1392R, a Grumman AA-5, registered to the student pilot Leonard Ross, crashed after takeoff at Ormond Beach, Florida while on a 14 CFR Part 91 instructional flight. Visual meteorological conditions prevailed and no flight plan was filed for the local flight. The airplane was substantially damaged and the instructor and student received serious injuries. The flight originated about 30 minutes earlier. Witnesses observed the airplane take off from runway 08, heard the engine fail and observed the airplane stall into trees. The airplane then fell vertically to the ground, ripping the roof off of the cockpit. Postcrash examination of the airplane by FAA personnel revealed water and dirt inside the carburetor and rust deposits in the carburetor bowl. The rubber seal around the carburetor air induction flange was found deformed, pinched and not fully sealing the flange. The flight instructor stated the engine had failed to develop full power and 2 days before the accident and the engine had been worked on by local maintenance personnel. The local maintenance shop work order stated that both the carburetor and carburetor float had been removed and reinstalled. THE INSTRUCTOR AND STUDENT EXPERIENCED A LOSS OF ENGINE POWER ON TAKEOFF. THE AIRPLANE COLLIDED WITH TREES AND FELL TO THE GROUND. EXAMINATION OF THE ENGINE AIR INDUCTION SYSTEM REVEALED A DISTORTED SEAL AT THE CARBURETOR FLANGE THAT ALLOWED DIRT AND MOISTURE TO ENTER THE CARBURETOR. THE CARBURETOR HAD BEEN REMOVED AND WORKED ON BY A LOCAL MECHANIC 2 DAYS BEFORE THE ACCIDENT. Source: NTSB Aviation Accident Database (Pre-2008 Archive) Retrieved: 2026-02-12
Verbatim from NTSB's published report. Source file
NTSB_1994_MIA94LA193.txt.
Findings + structured fields enriched from FAA avall.mdb.
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Related research
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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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