ATL98LA027 · American AA-1
American AA-1 · Accident: in flight collision with object during initial climb
From Private airstrip to an unrecorded destination
Event
- NTSB case
- ATL98LA027
- 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
American AA-1
- Aircraft type
- 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
- N5789L
- Operator
- David W. Johnson · private individual
- Onboard fatalities
- Unknown
- Route
- From Private airstripTo 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
- Initial climb
- 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
- Destroyed
Cause areas
- Pilot in command › Altitude/clearance, not attained
- Pilot in command › Preflight planning/preparation, improper
Approximate · Coordinates as recorded by the NTSB; no uncertainty radius is established.
NTSB narrative
The pilot stated that he taxied to the end of the 2,000 foot long runway, and performed a run-up. During takeoff, he advanced the throttle full forward and began the takeoff roll. The aircraft accelerated and lifted off into ground effect. The pilot said he flew in ground effect, but the aircraft did not accelerate and climb as expected. At the end of the runway, he pulled up, but the airplane stalled (mushed) into trees. According to the pilot, he believed the accident could have been avoided if he had departed from an airport with a longer runway. According to an FAA inspector, the pilot attempted to takeoff from a strip covered with wet grass that was 7 to 8 inches tall. The Pilot Operating Handbook (POH) showed that a takeoff distance of 1615 feet was needed to clear a 50 foot obstacle during takeoff from a hard surfaced runway, at maximum gross weight, with flaps up, wind zero, and sea level conditions. There was no chart for takeoff performance from a grass strip.
Probable cause
the pilot's inadequate preflight planning/preparation, and failure to ensure that the airplane would be able to clear trees during takeoff. Related factors were: the high/wet vegetation on the grass runway, and the proximity of trees to the runway.
Verbatim NTSB analysis and probable cause from the NTSB dataset
Sources
NTSB record ATL98LA027
- Event ID
- 20001208X09263
- Case number
- ATL98LA027
- 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: b41bc6b9a4086fe7a755d1119885a963b72646ad510c547c962ec09214fc3c85; retrieved 2026-09-22T18:08:26.206Z.