MIA85FA106 · Grumman American AA-5
Grumman American AA-5 · Accident: loss of control in flight en route
From Mobile Regional Airport (MOB) to Tampa International Airport (TPA)
Event
- NTSB case
- MIA85FA106
- 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
- Visual Meteorological Cond
Grumman American AA-5
- 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
- N9228L
- Operator
- Ted N. Denny · private individual
- Onboard fatalities
- Unknown
- Route
- From Mobile Regional Airport (MOB), Mobile, ALTo Tampa International Airport (TPA), Tampa, FL
- 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
- Loss of control in flight
- 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 handling, not maintained
- Pilot in command › Descent, not corrected
- Pilot in command › Spatial disorientation
Approximate · Coordinates as recorded by the NTSB; no uncertainty radius is established.
NTSB narrative
THE ACFT CRASHED IN THE GULF OF MEXICO WHILE THE PLT WAS ON A NIGHT X-COUNTRY FLT. THE WX AT THE DESTINATION HAD BEEN FORCAST TO BE IFR. HOWEVER, IN THE AREA OF THE ACCIDENT, WITNESSES STATED THE WX WAS GOOD WITH NO FOG & IT WAS A DARK NIGHT. WHEN THE ACFT DID NOT ARRIVE, A SEARCH WAS INITIATED. THE WRECKAGE WAS FOUND THE NEXT DAY AT 1106 EST WHERE THE ACFT CRASHED ABOUT 3 MI SOUTH OF HORSESHOE BEACH. NO PREIMPACT PART FAILURE OR MALFUNCTION WAS FOUND. RADAR DATA SHOWED THAT THE ACFT HAD ENTERED A SPIRAL BEFORE CONTACT WAS LOST IN THE VICINITY OF THE CRASH SITE. A CHECK OF THE PLT'S BLOOD SHOWED A SLIGHT AMOUNT OF ALCOHOL; HOWEVER, SOME OR ALL OF THIS COULD HAVE BEEN ATTRIBUTED TO PUTREFACTION.
Verbatim NTSB analysis from the NTSB dataset
Sources
NTSB record MIA85FA106
- Event ID
- 20001214X35749
- Case number
- MIA85FA106
- 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: local date, investigation status. Values present in the bulk record are kept.
- The date is the local date; the NTSB stores the UTC date 1985-02-28.
- API snapshot SHA-256: 307cce25121e40a1d297cab55a7fc304365b16bf25f28d3788e4589a9920552b; retrieved 2026-09-21T05:07:53.580Z.