FLIGHT FINDINGSAVIATION OCCURRENCE MAP
Back to map

NYC93LA164 · Grumman American AA-5B

20 Aug 1993 · Westerly, RI, United States

Grumman American AA-5B · Accident: loss of engine power en route

From an unrecorded airport to New Bedford Regional Airport (EWB)

Report a problem

Event

NTSB case
NYC93LA164
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

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
N1547R
Operator
Unknown
Onboard fatalities
Unknown
Route
From not recordedTo New Bedford Regional Airport (EWB), New Bedford, MA
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
En route · climb to cruise
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
Loss of engine power
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

  • Reason for occurrence undetermined
  • Terrain condition › Soft

Approximate · Estimated position: the centre of Westerly, RI, the place the record names. Not the accident site.

NTSB narrative

THE PILOT STATED THAT PRIOR TO TAKEOFF 'EVERYTHING APPEARED NORMAL. AT ABOUT 200 FEET, THE RPM DROPPED TO 1000-1200. HE TRIED TO SWITCH FUEL TANKS, BUT THAT DID NOT HELP. HE INITIATED A FORCED LANDING IN A FIELD AND THE AIRPLANE ENCOUNTERED SOFT TERRAIN DURING THE LANDING ROLL. A POST-IMPACT FIRE DESTROYED THE AIRPLANE. THE INVESTIGATION REVEALED NO EVIDENCE OF MECHANCIAL MALFUNCTION; HOWEVER, THE ENGINE WAS EXTENSIVELY DAMAGED FROM FIRE.

Probable cause

The loss of engine power for undetermined reasons, and the subsequent forced landing and collision with soft terrain.

Verbatim NTSB analysis and probable cause from the NTSB dataset

Sources

NTSB record NYC93LA164
Event ID
20001211X13239
Case number
NYC93LA164
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: 9c5b0aea4ee5a046b1cb13841d7f6c5db081f55136b37799fe0de74bdb77ec39; retrieved 2026-09-21T14:10:32.138Z.