NTSB CAROL · Event
Event MIA96LA097
Aircraft involved
Probable cause & findings
the failure of the pilot-in-command to apply caburetor heat before reducing the throttle to simulate an engine failure. Contributing to the accident was the carburetor icing conditions and the unsuitable terrain encountered during the emergency descent.
Factual narrative
On March 9, 1996, about 0905 eastern standard time, a Cessna 150M, N704XQ, registered to Ormond Beach Aviation, crashed while attempting a go-around at the Ormond Beach Municipal Airport, Ormond Beach, Florida. Visual meteorological conditions prevailed and no flight plan was filed for the 14 CFR Part 91 instructional flight. The airplane was substantially damaged and the commercial pilot/flight instructor and student pilot were not injured. The flight had originated from the Ormond Beach Municipal Airport about 0845 that same day. The flight instructor stated that while on downwind leg abeam the numbers about 1,000 feet msl, he reduced the throttle to idle to simulate an engine failure, but he did not apply carburetor heat. The student hesitated, then applied carburetor heat 20 to 30 seconds later. While on base leg 1/4 mile from the runway at 500 feet, the flight instructor aborted the simulation. He applied throttle but the engine did not respond. He then shut off carburetor heat and realizing that he would be unable to land on the runway, he decided to make a forced landing on a golf course. While descending the left wing hit a tree, the airplane rolled left, cartwheeled, and came to rest with the empennage elevated resting against a tree. The airplane was recovered and with the engine still attached to the airframe, the engine was started. It was not run to a specific rpm or to full-rated rpm due to damaged engine mounts. A review of the Carburetor Ice Probability Chart revealed that conditions were probable for serious icing at descent power. The CFI stated that while in the traffic pattern he reduced the throttle to idle to simulate loss of engine power, but he did not apply carburetor heat. The student hesitated in performing the emergency procedures, then applied carburetor heat 20-30 seconds later. The CFI aborted the simulation and added power but the engine failed to respond. He made a forced landing on a golf course and the airplane collided with a tree. The engine was subsequently started, but was not operated to full rated RPM due to damaged engine mounts. A review of the carburetor ice probability chart revealed that serious carburetor icing conditions were probable at descent power about the time of the accident. Source: NTSB Aviation Accident Database (Pre-2008 Archive) Retrieved: 2026-02-12
Verbatim from NTSB's published report. Source file
NTSB_1996_MIA96LA097.txt.
Findings + structured fields enriched from FAA avall.mdb.
Full investigation docket on
data.ntsb.gov ↗.
Beyond the agency record
Search this event elsewhere.
Pre-filled searches into the sources where news + community discussion of aviation events lives. External sources are reported, not agency. Treat them as signal that something happened, not as fact about what happened.
Entity-clustered aviation events in the press — last 24 hr + 30-day archive.
Official agency record + docket.
Investigative docket: factual reports, photos, transcripts.
Long-running aviation incident database (Flight Safety Foundation).
Community NTSB synthesis blog — often has photos and witness reports.
Gold-standard aviation incident blog.
Aviation industry news search.
GA pilot forum — informed but rumor-prone.
GA pilot subreddit search.
Tail-number page — flight history (free tier limited).
AOPA Air Safety Institute search.
Mainstream press coverage. Recent events only.
Privacy-preserving news search.
External links open in a new tab. We don't ingest their content; we deep-link search queries.
Related research
What the literature says.
Academic papers and agency reports matching this event's aircraft type or causal vocabulary (icing, engine failure, go-around). Sourced from NASA NTRS, NTSB Safety Studies, FAA CAMI, AOPA Air Safety Institute, Embry-Riddle Scholarly Commons, arXiv, and the Semantic Scholar academic graph.
- NASA NTRS 2026 · Contractor Report (CR)
Icing Physics Studies Using the 3D SIDRM Test Article: 2023 Icing Tests Analysis
In-flight icing is an important safety issue and is a factor that affects aircraft design and performance. Newer regulations are driving a need for improvements in airframe and engine icing simulation…
- arXiv 2025 · arXiv preprint
Multi-Agent Deep Reinforcement Learning for UAV-Assisted 5G Network Slicing: A Comparative Study of MAPPO, MADDPG, and MADQN
The growing demand for robust, scalable wireless networks in the 5G-and-beyond era has led to the deployment of Unmanned Aerial Vehicles (UAVs) as mobile base stations to enhance coverage in dense urb…
- Embry-Riddle Scholarly Commons 2025 · Journal article (JAAER)
A Mathematical Model on the Temporal Dynamics of Aviation Competitive Pricing
This study investigates the competitive dynamics of airport pricing using U.S. airport data to validate the findings. It employs linear and nonlinear ordinary differential equation models to analyze t…
- NASA NTRS 2025 · Conference Paper
A Training Study to Improve Monitoring During A Go-Around
As part of an FAA program to improve go-around (GA) safety, we were asked to determine if we could improve the performance of the Pilot Monitoring (PM) during a GA maneuver.
- NASA NTRS 2025 · Presentation
NASA Icing Update – March 2025
This NASA Icing Update was prepared for presentation to the SAE International AC-9C Inflight Icing Technology Committee. This update includes the following topics: planned Rotational Icing Scaling tes…
- arXiv 2024 · arXiv preprint
An energy-stable phase-field model for droplet icing simulations
A phase-field model for three-phase flows is established by combining the Navier-Stokes (NS) and the energy equations, with the Allen-Cahn (AC) and Cahn-Hilliard (CH) equations and is demonstrated ana…
Browse the full corpus — academia portal ↗