ATL90LA094 · Grumman AA-5B
Grumman AA-5B · Accident: partial loss of engine power (non-mechanical) en route
From DeKalb Peachtree Airport (PDK) to Burlington Alamance Regional Airport (BUY)
Event
- NTSB case
- ATL90LA094
- 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 AA-5B
- Aircraft type
- Grumman 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
- N74651
- Operator
- Robert E. Bridges · private individual
- Onboard fatalities
- Unknown
- Route
- From DeKalb Peachtree Airport (PDK), Chamblee, GATo Burlington Alamance Regional Airport (BUY), Burlington, NC
- 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 · 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
- Partial loss of engine power (non-mechanical)
- 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
- Pilot in command › Planned approach, misjudged
- Reason for occurrence undetermined
Approximate · Estimated position: the centre of Stone Mountain, GA, the place the record names. Not the accident site.
NTSB narrative
THE PILOT REPORTED A ROUGH RUNNING ENGINE & HIS INTENTION TO LAND AT THE AIRPORT. HE STATED HE PLANNED TO LAND ON RWY 35 BUT WAS HIGH WHEN OVER THE RWY. A GO-AROUND WAS EXECUTED. HE SAID THE ENGINE RAN ROUGHLY THROUGH-OUT THE GO-AROUND SO HE KEPT HIS ALTITUDE. A LONG FAST LANDING RESULTED FOLLOWED BY RWY OVERRUN & NOSING OVER INVERTED. THE AIRPORT MANAGER SAID THE ENGINE SPUTTERED WHEN THE GO-AROUND WAS BEGUN BUT RAN WITHOUT HESITATION AFTERWARDS. THE FLAPS WERE RETRACTED AND THERE WERE NO FLAT SPOTS ON THE TIRES. NOTHING WAS FOUND TO INDICATE THAT THE ENGINE COULD NOT OPERATE. THE SPARK PLUGS INDICATED NORMAL OPERATION.
Probable cause
THE PILOT'S MISJUDGED APPROACH WHICH RESULTED IN A LONG, FAST LANDING AND SUBSEQUENT OVERRUN OF THE DEPARTURE THRESHOLD. FACTORS IN THE ACCIDENT WERE THE PILOT'S FAILURE TO LOWER THE FLAPS AND ESTABLISH A PROPER GLIDEPATH.
Verbatim NTSB analysis and probable cause from the NTSB dataset
Sources
NTSB record ATL90LA094
- Event ID
- 20001212X22853
- Case number
- ATL90LA094
- 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: 9bd2dca6027aa1b0beeb1487b78870d3ce64d965ec32492ccb133e557811123d; retrieved 2026-09-23T06:30:48.409Z.