MIA00LA196 · Gulfstream American AA5A
Gulfstream American AA5A · Accident: total loss of engine power (mechanical failure) en route
From Craig Field (SEM) to Monroe County Aeroplex Airport (MVC)
Event
- NTSB case
- MIA00LA196
- 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
Gulfstream American AA5A
- Aircraft type
- Gulfstream American AA5
- 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
- N26937
- Operator
- Unknown
- Onboard fatalities
- Unknown
- Route
- From Craig Field (SEM), Selma, ALTo Monroe County Aeroplex Airport (MVC), Monroeville, AL
- 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
- Total loss of engine power (mechanical failure)
- 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
- Substantial
Cause areas
- Other maintenance personnel › Maintenance, installation, improper
Approximate · Coordinates from the NTSB case API, which marks them as estimated or does not say; no uncertainty radius is established.
NTSB narrative
While climbing through 3,500 feet after departure, the pilot noticed the engine oil pressure was zero. He initiated a turn back to the departure airport, and in the turn he observed oil on the windshield and the engine shuttered and lost power. He was unable to make it to the departure airport and a forced landing was made in a wooded area. Postcrash examination of the engine by an FAA inspector showed the engine front crankshaft seal had separated from the engine and was lying on the alternator. The No.'s 1 and 2 connecting rods had separated and had damage consistent with oil starvation. Engine logbook records showed the engine had been overhauled 280 flight hours before the accident. About 158 flight hours after overhaul and 122 flight hours before the accident, the engine front crankshaft seal was changed.
Probable cause
The improper installation of the engine front crankshaft seal by maintenance personnel resulting in the seal separating, total loss of engine oil, failure of the engine due to oil starvation, and a collision with trees while making a forced landing on unsuitable terrain.
Verbatim NTSB analysis and probable cause from the NTSB dataset
Sources
NTSB record MIA00LA196
- Event ID
- 20001212X21534
- Case number
- MIA00LA196
- 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, coordinates. Values present in the bulk record are kept.
- The date is the local date; the NTSB stores the UTC date 2000-07-03.
- API snapshot SHA-256: c3027b7e17574c527c1f69127f406c844b867f048eee4d2b03f31e1b765444e0; retrieved 2026-09-21T20:10:30.515Z.