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Atlas / NTSB / MIA97LA131

NTSB CAROL · Event

Event MIA97LA131

1997-04-09 STUART, Florida, United States Airport · SUA None 1 aircraft Status: Completed

Registry · N2HS

FAA Aircraft Registry record.

Make / Model

PIPER PA-34-200T

Year of manufacture

1979 · 18 years old at event

Engine

CONT MOTOR TSIO-360 SER (225 hp)

Seats / Engines

7 seats · 2 engines

Last airworthiness date

19791101

ADS-B equipped

Yes — Mode-S A18E11

Registrant of record

ISLAND PEARL AIRWAYS

Source: FAA Aircraft Registry (releasable master file).

Aircraft involved

Probable cause & findings

The pilot's failure to maintain directional control during a crosswind landing. Factors were the crosswind and his improper level off.

Factual narrative

On April 9, 1997, about 1433 eastern daylight time, a Piper PA-34, N2HS, registered to a private owner, operating as a 14 CFR Part 91 personal flight, landed hard at Witham Field, Stuart, Florida. Visual meteorological conditions prevailed and no flight plan was filed. The pilot and two passengers were not injured. The airplane sustained substantial damage. The flight originated from Rock Hill, South Carolina, about 2 hours 48 minutes before the accident. The pilot stated he was landing with a gusting, quartering crosswind to runway 07. He maintained a higher approach speed to compensate for the gusts. The airplane touched down, bounced and collided with the runway on the nose gear Review of weather information for the time period of the accident revealed no recorded record of turbulence, downdrafts, gusts, or windshear. The pilot stated he was landing with a gusty quartering crosswind. He maintained a higher speed to compensate for the gusts, touched down, bounced and the nose gear collided with the runway. Review of weather conditions revealed no recorded record of turbulence, downdrafts, gusts, or windshear. Source: NTSB Aviation Accident Database (Pre-2008 Archive) Retrieved: 2026-02-12

Verbatim from NTSB's published report. Source file NTSB_1997_MIA97LA131.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 (turbulence). 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 ↗