FTW00FA235 · Gulfstream American AA-5B
Gulfstream American AA-5B · Accident: loss of engine power while maneuvering
From East Texas Regional Airport (GGG) to Scholes International At Galveston Airport (GLS)
Event
- NTSB case
- FTW00FA235
- 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
- 4 · 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 AA-5B
- Aircraft type
- Gulfstream 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
- N4516P
- Operator
- Unknown
- Onboard fatalities
- Unknown
- Route
- From East Texas Regional Airport (GGG), Longview, TXTo Scholes International At Galveston Airport (GLS), Galveston, TX
- 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
- 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
- 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 › Aircraft control, not maintained
Approximate · Coordinates as recorded by the NTSB; no uncertainty radius is established.
NTSB narrative
Witnesses located near the northwest end of a private airstrip reported that they observed the airplane approach from the west, and it appeared as if it was going to land. As the airplane flew by the witnesses, at about 30-60 feet agl, the engine "sounded like it was cutting out." After the airplane passed the witnesses, it pulled up, and "suddenly the engine cut out." The airplane turned left and then nosed down into trees. The airplane was consumed by fire. No structural or mechanical anomalies were observed during the post accident examination of the airplane. The reason for the engine's loss of power could not be determined. The temperature was 86 degrees Fahrenheit, and the dew point was 73 degrees Fahrenheit. According to the carburetor icing probability chart, this places the airplane in the serious icing range at glide power.
Probable cause
the pilot's failure to maintain aircraft control while maneuvering, which resulted in an inadvertent stall. A contributing factor was the loss of engine power for undetermined reasons.
Verbatim NTSB analysis and probable cause from the NTSB dataset
Sources
NTSB record FTW00FA235
- Event ID
- 20001212X21719
- Case number
- FTW00FA235
- 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: 2d428a6611cdd585d05ad4a9bfa8ea659c8415cc2b9919cc56a3c78f9708f5b5; retrieved 2026-09-20T20:55:18.945Z.