MIA97LA067 · Grumman American AA-5B
Grumman American AA-5B · Accident: airframe, component or system failure while taxiing
From 3N8 · Concord, NC to RUQ
Event
- NTSB case
- MIA97LA067
- 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-5B
- Aircraft type
- Grumman American AA-5
- 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
- N81307
- Operator
- Jonathan K. Lane · private individual
- Onboard fatalities
- Unknown
- Route
- From 3N8 · Concord, NCTo RUQ
- 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
- Taxi · from runway
- 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
- Airframe, component or system failure
- DamageDestroyed: beyond practical repair. Substantial: damage that affects the structure, performance or handling and normally needs major repair. Minor: less than that. Glossary
- Destroyed
Cause areas
- Flightcrew › Operation with known deficiencies in equipment, continued
- Landing gear, normal brake system › Fire
- Landing gear, normal brake system › Overtemperature
- Landing gear, normal brake system › Worn
Approximate · Coordinates as recorded by the NTSB; no uncertainty radius is established.
NTSB narrative
During taxi back for takeoff after landing, the aircraft was pulling to the left, and the student pilot believed the left brake was sticking. The flight instructor (CFI) took control of the aircraft. He stopped, got out, and checked the tires, which he found properly inflated. The CFI then taxied up and down the taxiway several times. The CFI and student then elected to fly the aircraft back to the departure airport, since a mechanic was not available at their location. Before starting their takeoff, they observed smoke coming from the left main gear. After shutting down the engine and exiting the aircraft, they found the left main gear was on fire. The fire spread and destroyed the aircraft. Postcrash examination of the left main gear brake pads and disk showed the pads were worn past the point of the pad retaining rivets. A piece of pad had broken off, and the disk had deep grooves cut into it. The wheel bearings showed no evidence of failure.
Probable cause
continued operation of the aircraft by the flight instructor (CFI) and student after identifying a brake problem, which resulted in a fire that erupted from the brake system and subsequently destroyed the aircraft.
Verbatim NTSB analysis and probable cause from the NTSB dataset
Sources
NTSB record MIA97LA067
- Event ID
- 20001208X07335
- Case number
- MIA97LA067
- 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: 4a5e1c076ab7feda732d40cc68de03a587c0d4616bbad1a1720b6db8d864cdd6; retrieved 2026-09-22T20:28:23.410Z.