BFO87FA046 · Grumman AA-5B
Grumman AA-5B · Accident: in flight encounter with weather en route
From Tri-Cities Regional TN/VA Airport (TRI) to Allegheny County Airport (AGC)
Event
- NTSB case
- BFO87FA046
- 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
- 1 · 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
- Instrument 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
- N19SM
- Operator
- Charles D. Griffard · private individual
- Onboard fatalities
- Unknown
- Route
- From Tri-Cities Regional TN/VA Airport (TRI), Bristol, TNTo Allegheny County Airport (AGC), Pittsburgh, PA
- 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
- In flight encounter with weather
- 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
- Visual flight rules (VFR) flight into instrument meteorological conditions (IMC)
- 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 › Flight into known adverse weather, initiated
- Pilot in command › VFR flight into imc, continued
Approximate · Estimated position: the centre of Abingdon, VA, the place the record names. Not the accident site.
NTSB narrative
FSS ADVISED THE PLT THAT VFR FLIGHT WAS NOT RECOMMENDED DUE TO OBSCURED MOUNTAINS ALONG THE FLIGHT ROUTE. THERE ALSO WERE THUNDERSHOWERS WEST OF THE FLIGHT ROUTE. THE PLT SAID HE HAD TO LEAVE TO STAY AHEAD OF THE THUNDERSHOWERS. HE SAID THAT HE WOULD FLY THE VALLEY ROUTE BETWEEN BRISTOL AND ROANOKE, VA AND THEN DIRECT TO HIS DESTINATION. THE ACFT DEPARTED ABOUT 45 MINS LATER AND CLIMBED TO 2800 FT MSL AND HEADED NE BEFORE RADAR SERVICE WAS TERMINATED. ABOUT 10 MINS AFTERWARDS A WITNESS HEARD THE ACFT HIT A FOG COVERED MOUNTAIN ABOUT 26 MILES NE OF THE DEPARTURE ARPT. THE ACFT HIT THE MOUNTAIN AT AN ELEVATION OF ABOUT 3900 FT. THE GLADE SPRING VOR IS ON THE MOUNTAIN AND THE ACFT WRECKAGE WAS ABOUT ONE-QUARTER MI AWAY FROM IT.
Verbatim NTSB analysis from the NTSB dataset
Sources
NTSB record BFO87FA046
- Event ID
- 20001213X31414
- Case number
- BFO87FA046
- 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: ba9f8ffce17e7d36c10c537506ae3b0ab8ba18231d5560aff99f061dcb7a0116; retrieved 2026-09-21T04:05:04.040Z.