LAX84LA038 · Grumman AA-5B
Grumman AA-5B · Accident: loss of engine power while maneuvering
From Blythe Airport (BLH) to an unrecorded destination
Event
- NTSB case
- LAX84LA038
- 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 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
- N28221
- Operator
- Unknown
- Onboard fatalities
- Unknown
- Route
- From Blythe Airport (BLH), Blythe, CATo 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
- Maneuvering
- 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 engine power
- 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 › Directional control, not maintained
- Pilot in command › Ground loop/swerve, inadvertent
- Reason for occurrence undetermined
Approximate · Coordinates as recorded by the NTSB; no uncertainty radius is established.
NTSB narrative
THE PLT HAD PLANNED TO LAND AT A PRIVATE ARPT, NORTHEAST OF QUARTIZITE, AZ. AFTER ARRIVING IN THAT AREA, HE SAW WHAT HE THOUGHT WAS THE RWY, BUT WHEN HE DESCENDED FOR A CLOSER LOOK, HE DECIDED THAT IT WAS NOT THE RWY. HE REPORTED THAT HE CLIMBED TO APRX 250 FT & STARTED CIRCLING WHEN THE ENG BEGAN RUNNING ROUGH. HE STATED THAT HE DECIDED TO LAND ON AN ACCESS ROAD BESIDE A FREEWAY. THE PLT STATED THAT DURING THE LANDING ROLL, THE ACFT SWERVED TO THE LEFT WHEN HE APPLIED THE BRAKES. SUBSEQUENTLY, THE ACFT HIT A TREE & A FENCE. AN EXAM & A FUNCTIONAL TEST OF THE ENG WERE PERFORMED, BUT NO REASON FOR A POWER LOSS WAS FOUND. ALSO, NO PART FAILURE OR MALFUNCTION OF THE AIRFRAME WAS FOUND.
Verbatim NTSB analysis from the NTSB dataset
Sources
NTSB record LAX84LA038
- Event ID
- 20001214X44897
- Case number
- LAX84LA038
- 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 1983-10-30.
- API snapshot SHA-256: ef6a7cd387d091a2c3ff92c78015e3f4af341474a8d2eedbdfd44a061b1a38c7; retrieved 2026-09-23T21:09:37.405Z.