LAX94FA089 · Grumman AA-1C
Aero Flite Grumman AA-1C · Accident: loss of engine power during initial climb
From an unrecorded airport to Oxnard Airport (OXR)
Event
- NTSB case
- LAX94FA089
- 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
- 1 · 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 AA-1C
- Aircraft type
- Grumman 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
- N39036
- Operator
- Aero-Flite
- Onboard fatalities
- Unknown
- Route
- From not recordedTo Oxnard Airport (OXR), Oxnard, CA
- 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
- Loss of engine power
- 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/mush
- 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 › Airspeed(vs), not maintained
- Pilot in command › Stall/mush, inadvertent
Approximate · Coordinates as recorded by the NTSB; no uncertainty radius is established.
NTSB narrative
FOLLOWING TAKEOFF, THE AIRPLANE CLIMBED TO ABOUT 70 FEET ABOVE THE GROUND IN A NOSE-HIGH ATTITUDE. THE PASSENGER REPORTED THAT THE ENGINE WAS NOT DEVELOPING FULL POWER AND, WHILE THE PILOT WAS PERFORMING SEVERAL EMERGENCY PROCEDURES, THE STALL HORN SOUNDED SEVERAL TIMES. THE PILOT BEGAN A LEFT TURN TO RETURN TO THE AIRPORT AND THE STALL HORN SOUNDED AGAIN. THE AIRPLANE SHARPLY DESCENDED NOSE DOWN INTO A SMALL RIVER AREA AND CAME TO REST INVERTED IN ABOUT 3 FEET OF WATER. THE PASSENGER MANAGED TO ESCAPE; HOWEVER, THE PILOT REMAINED TRAPPED IN THE WRECKAGE. NO MALFUNCTION OF THE ENGINE COULD BE ESTABLISHED.
Probable cause
A failure of the pilot to maintain adequate airspeed, and subsequent inadvertent stall during an undetermined loss of engine power following takeoff.
Verbatim NTSB analysis and probable cause from the NTSB dataset
Sources
NTSB record LAX94FA089
- Event ID
- 20001211X13869
- Case number
- LAX94FA089
- 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: fb7c5c7397f5d9047c99f36542514fbf52d9860e8f63b099b058fb503e88e728; retrieved 2026-09-21T00:16:45.091Z.