DEN91LA021 · Gulfstream AA-5B
Gulfstream AA-5B · Accident: hard landing
From Perry Stokes Airport (TAD) to an unrecorded destination
Event
- NTSB case
- DEN91LA021
- 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 AA-5B
- Aircraft type
- Gulfstream 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
- N4557E
- Operator
- Unknown
- Onboard fatalities
- Unknown
- Route
- From Perry Stokes Airport (TAD), Trinidad, COTo not recorded
- 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
- Landing · aborted
- 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
- Hard landing
- 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 › Flare, improper
Approximate · Coordinates as recorded by the NTSB; no uncertainty radius is established.
NTSB narrative
THE PRIVATE PILOT WAS FLYING TWO PASSENGERS ON A ROUND TRIP CROSS COUNTRY FLIGHT. ACCORDING TO THE PILOT, HE HAD THE BRAKES REPAIRED AT EL PASO, TEXAS, AND WAS DISTRACTED BY WORRY OVER THE BRAKES ABILITY TO STOP ON THE DOWN HILL RUNWAY. HE REPORTED THAT HE MADE A NORMAL APPROACH TO RUNWAY 27, AND FLARED HIGH BECAUSE OF THE DARKNESS, RESULTING IN A HARD LANDING. THE PLANE BOUNCED BACK INTO THE AIR, THE PILOT ADDED POWER AND MADE A GO-AROUND. HE SAID THE ENGINE VIBRATED BADLY, AND HE ASSUMED THE PROPELLER STRUCK THE RUNWAY, EITHER DURING THE HARD LANDING OR AS HE ADDED POWER. ON THE SECOND APPROACH, AT TOUCHDOWN, THE NOSE GEAR COLLAPSED, THE PLANE DEPARTED THE RUNWAY, SHEARED THE MAIN GEAR AND CAME TO REST NOSE DOWN. THE RIGHT WING WAS BENT BACK, BOTH WING SPARS, THE FUSELAGE AND TAIL SECTION WERE DAMAGED. THE INVESTIGATION REVEALED THE MAIN LANDING GEAR LEGS WERE OVER STRESSED AND THE LOWER FUSELAGE WAS CRUSHED INWARD.
Probable cause
IMPROPER FLARE BY THE PILOT, WHICH RESULTED IN A HARD LANDING. A REALTED FACTOR WAS: LOW LIGHT CONDITION AT DUSK.
Verbatim NTSB analysis and probable cause from the NTSB dataset
Sources
NTSB record DEN91LA021
- Event ID
- 20001212X24605
- Case number
- DEN91LA021
- 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: 390f86d7122080c9587cc5ffddc7de45c437c0702aed18abac475b3cdaab1493; retrieved 2026-09-23T05:08:36.225Z.