LAX84FA280 · Grumman American AA-5B
Grumman American AA-5B · Accident: in flight encounter with weather during initial climb
From 61Q to Sacramento Executive Airport (SAC)
Event
- NTSB case
- LAX84FA280
- 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 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
- N28867
- Operator
- Unknown
- Onboard fatalities
- Unknown
- Route
- From 61QTo Sacramento Executive Airport (SAC), Sacramento, 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
- Initial climb
- 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 › Aircraft handling, not maintained
- Pilot in command › Spatial disorientation
- Pilot in command › VFR flight into imc, continued
Approximate · Coordinates as recorded by the NTSB; no uncertainty radius is established.
NTSB narrative
THE PLT LIVED NEAR THE ARPT & HAD BEEN COMMUTING TO SACRAMENTO, CA FOR ABOUT 3 WEEKS. RWY 27 WAS THE PROMINANT RWY & THE ARPT WAS SURROUNDED BY HILLS. SHORTLY AFTER TAKING OFF, THE ACFT CRASHED ABOUT 2 MI WEST OF THE ARPT WHILE IN A RIGHT WING LOW ATTITUDE ON A HEADING OF ABOUT 060 DEG. SEVERAL FAMILIES HEARD THE ACFT START & TAKEOFF. ONE PERSON, WHO WAS A PLT, ESTIMATED THE WX WAS ABOUT 100 FT OVERCAST, 1/4 MI VISIBILITY, WING CALM WITH MODERATE RAINFALL. A FARMER NEAR THE CRASH SITE SAID HE HEARD THE ACFT TAKEOFF, & SHORTLY THEREAFTER, THE ENG MADE A MUCH LOUDER SOUND, AS IF THE PLANE WAS IN A POWER DIVE. NO RECORDS WERE FOUND TO INDICATE THE PLT HAD ANY INSTRUMENT TRAINING.
Verbatim NTSB analysis from the NTSB dataset
Sources
NTSB record LAX84FA280
- Event ID
- 20001214X39616
- Case number
- LAX84FA280
- 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: c09b7a8c97f0e1ca266c01fd92233703535639f2700e54216e62540afccdbbb3; retrieved 2026-09-21T05:33:27.363Z.