SEA96LA111 · Grumman American AA-1B
Grumman American AA-1B · Accident: in flight collision with object on approach
From Southwest Oregon Regional Airport (OTH) to an unrecorded destination
Event
- NTSB case
- SEA96LA111
- Event typeAccident: someone killed or seriously injured, or the aircraft substantially damaged (NTSB definition). Incident: an occurrence that affected or could have affected safety, short of that. Glossary
- Accident
- InvestigationHow far the investigation had got when the record was published: preliminary, ongoing, final or completed. Unknown where the source does not say. Glossary
- Completed
- API-reported fatalities
- 0 · all aircraft and ground
- Ground fatalities
- 0
- OperationWhat kind of flying it was, grouped by the rules it flew under: airline (US Part 121), air taxi and commuter (Part 135), general aviation (Part 91 and similar), military or government. Glossary
- General aviation
- WeatherVisual meteorological conditions (VMC): good enough to fly by looking outside. Instrument conditions (IMC): cloud or low visibility, flying by instruments. Glossary
- Visual Meteorological Cond
Grumman American AA-1B
- Aircraft type
- Grumman American AA-1
- Category
- Airplane
- RegistrationThe aircraft's tail number, such as N12345 or G-ABCD. Registrations are reissued, so the same one years apart can be a different aircraft. Glossary
- N9875L
- Operator
- Richard V. Brewster · private individual
- Onboard fatalities
- Unknown
- Route
- From Southwest Oregon Regional Airport (OTH), North Bend, ORTo not recorded
- Aircraft age
- Not recorded
- Flight rulesThe regulations the flight operated under: in the US, Part 91 (general aviation), Part 121 (airlines), Part 135 (air taxi and commuter) and others; for flights abroad, the NTSB's coarser commercial or non-commercial code. Glossary
- Part 91: General Aviation
- Phase of flightThe stage of the flight when things started to go wrong: standing, taxi, takeoff, initial climb, en route, maneuvering, approach or landing. Glossary
- Approach · VFR go-around
- First occurrenceThe single coded event the NTSB judges best describes what happened (records from 2008 on). Older records name the first occurrence in the sequence instead. Glossary
- In flight collision with object
- Also codedOther events the NTSB coded in the sequence, such as a wire strike after a loss of power. Flight Findings uses them for its kinds of event. Glossary
- Tree(s)
- DamageDestroyed: beyond practical repair. Substantial: damage that affects the structure, performance or handling and normally needs major repair. Minor: less than that. Glossary
- Substantial
Cause areas
- Pilot in command › Clearance, not maintained
- Pilot in command › Go-around, delayed
- Pilot in command › Weather evaluation, inadequate
Approximate · Coordinates as recorded by the NTSB; no uncertainty radius is established.
NTSB narrative
The pilot stated that while on an approach to the airport, he checked the wind sock, saw a tail wind, and decided to go around, 'but was unable to climb out in time to clear trees.' The airplane crashed into trees beyond the departure end of the runway about 520 feet above the airport elevation. The runway at the airport was 1,700 feet long. The pilot stated that he believed he had waited too long to go around, and he indicated that mechanical malfunction or failure was not involved in the accident.
Probable cause
the pilot's inadequate evaluation of wind conditions, and his subsequent failure to initiate a go-around in a timely manner, which resulted in his inability to maintain clearance with trees during the go-around. Factors relating to the accident included a tail wind condition, a short runway, and hilly terrain beyond the departure end of the runway.
Verbatim NTSB analysis and probable cause from the NTSB dataset
Sources
NTSB record SEA96LA111
- Event ID
- 20001208X06107
- Case number
- SEA96LA111
- Dataset
- historical-pre2008
- Source SHA-256
- 89e2df6d848e7ab3b42e7d7c7a03ff403303057a26ca04c95b3ea67201c3ce74
Source notes (4)
- Unreviewed is an editorial label, not an investigation status. API-sourced is not report-checked or human-reviewed. Explicit event totals are used without summing aircraft injury tables; onboard allocation is withheld. Unknown values remain unknown. The operation category is mapped from the NTSB-reported FAR part and has not been reviewed.
- Filled from the NTSB case API where the bulk record had no value: investigation status. Values present in the bulk record are kept.
- The date is the local date, which is the same as the UTC date the NTSB stores.
- API snapshot SHA-256: ddef5d828ad5e37ba48b6f911d9a116129b6ad969d8f425f77927f39170878af; retrieved 2026-09-21T21:47:05.975Z.