LAX89LA267 · Grumman American AA-5B
Grumman American AA-5B · Accident: partial loss of engine power (mechanical failure) en route
From Long Beach International Airport (LGB) to Catalina Airport (AVX)
Event
- NTSB case
- LAX89LA267
- 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 American AA-5B
- Aircraft type
- Grumman 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
- N28565
- Operator
- Brown, Gerald B. · private individual
- Onboard fatalities
- Unknown
- Route
- From Long Beach International Airport (LGB), Long Beach, CATo Catalina Airport (AVX), Avalon, 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
- 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 (mechanical failure)
- 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
- Engine assembly, valve, exhaust › Fatigue
- Engine assembly, valve, exhaust › Worn
Approximate · Coordinates as recorded by the NTSB; no uncertainty radius is established.
NTSB narrative
DURING AN OVERWATER FLT TO CROSS A 23 MI CHANNEL, THE ENG BEGAN TO RUN ROUGH & LOOSE POWER. THE PLT TURNED TOWARD THE SHORE & MADE A FORCED LANDING ON A DIRT ROAD ON TERMINAL ISLAND. BEFORE THE ACFT STOPPED, IT COLLIDED WITH A FENCE & SVRL PARKED CARS IN A STORAGE LOT. AN EXAM OF THE ENG REVEALED THE TOP OF THE #1 PISTON & THE #1 CYLINDER HEAD WERE SEVERELY BATTERED; THE #1 EXHAUST VALVE HEAD HAD SEPD FROM ITS STEM & WAS FOUND IN THE EXHAUST SYSTEM; THE EXHAUST VALVE GUIDE WAS SEVERELY WORN AT THE EXHAUST PORT; AND THE VALVE STEM AREA WAS HEAVILY CORRODED & COKED WITH EXHAUST RESIDUE. A FATIGUE FRACTURE WAS IDENTIFIED ON A PORTION OF THE VALVE HEAD THAT WAS NOT DAMAGED. A METALLURGICAL EXAM REVEALED EVIDENCE THAT THE VALVE HAD FAILED FROM FATIGUE DUE TO OVERHEATING, WHICH RESULTED FROM A WORN OR BELL MOUTHED VALVE GUIDE.
Probable cause
THE FATIGUE FAILURE OF AN EXHAUST VALVE DUE TO EXCESSIVE WEAR OF THE RESPECTIVE VALVE GUIDE. FACTORS RELATED TO THE ACCIDENT WERE: THE FENCE & CARS IN THE EMERGENCY LANDING AREA.
Verbatim NTSB analysis and probable cause from the NTSB dataset
Sources
NTSB record LAX89LA267
- Event ID
- 20001213X29153
- Case number
- LAX89LA267
- 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: 7c7fc4ce4912b37b4a84692e0d445964d5de0de43415073e10685dda78ed0ef9; retrieved 2026-09-23T07:17:12.715Z.