NYC98LA067 · Grumman American AA-5
Grumman American AA-5 · Accident: total loss of engine power (non-mechanical) while maneuvering
From Sylvania Airport (C89) to I65 · New Lebanon, OH
Event
- NTSB case
- NYC98LA067
- 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-5
- 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
- N5625L
- Operator
- Unknown
- Onboard fatalities
- Unknown
- Route
- From Sylvania Airport (C89), Sturtevant, WITo I65 · New Lebanon, OH
- 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
- Maneuvering · turn to reverse direction
- 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
- Total loss of engine power (non-mechanical)
- 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
- Stall
- 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 › Fuel supply, misjudged
Approximate · Coordinates as recorded by the NTSB; no uncertainty radius is established.
NTSB narrative
Before takeoff, the pilot determined that the airplane had approximately 30 gallons of fuel, by visually looking into the fuel tanks and using fuel burn calculations from the airplane's last flight. The airplane departed, drawing fuel from the left tank. While en route, the pilot noticed that the left fuel gauge was indicating empty, and switched the fuel selector to the right tank. Concerned about low fuel, the pilot diverted to refuel. Prior to landing, the pilot switched the fuel selector back to the left tank. On final approach, the pilot elected to go-around with full flaps. The airplane climbed to about 30 feet, and continued for about 1/2 mile, then turned back to the airport. Upon completion of the turn, the engine lost total power. The airplane lost altitude, stalled, and impacted trees, rupturing both fuel tanks. There was approximately a 1 gallon fuel spill, on the pavement, under each of the ruptured fuel tanks. There was no evidence of fuel spillage in the area where the fuel tanks had been ruptured, and no fuel was observed in the fuel tanks.
Probable cause
The pilot's misjudgment of the fuel supply.
Verbatim NTSB analysis and probable cause from the NTSB dataset
Sources
NTSB record NYC98LA067
- Event ID
- 20001211X09603
- Case number
- NYC98LA067
- 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: local date, investigation status. Values present in the bulk record are kept.
- The date is the local date; the NTSB stores the UTC date 1998-02-22.
- API snapshot SHA-256: 1999c93225b78ddcd6675d246f18d21dfb4b8b6686be88565d34f1530384ff1b; retrieved 2026-09-21T11:37:25.575Z.