NYC84FA039 · American AA-1A
American AA-1A · Accident: loss of control in flight on approach
From Bermudian Valley Airpark (07N) to an unrecorded destination
Event
- NTSB case
- NYC84FA039
- 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
- 2 · 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
American AA-1A
- Aircraft type
- American AA-1
- 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
- N81YB
- Operator
- Unknown
- Onboard fatalities
- Unknown
- Route
- From Bermudian Valley Airpark (07N), KRALLTON, PATo 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
- Approach
- 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
- 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
- Stall/spin
- 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 › Stall/spin, not corrected
Approximate · Coordinates as recorded by the NTSB; no uncertainty radius is established.
NTSB narrative
PRIOR TO THE FLT, THE PLT STATED THAT HE WOULD BE FLYING FORAPRX 1/2 HR. APRX 25 MIN AFTER TAKEOFF, GROUND WITNESSES NORTHEAST OF THE ARPT OBSERVED THE ACFT ON A WESTERLY HEADING, TURNING TOWARD THE ARPT. SHORTLY AFTER THAT, THEY SAW THE ACFT IN AN UNCONTROLLED DESCENT. THEY DESCRIBED IT AS FLIPPING OR CORKSCREWING IN A NOSE DOWN ATTITUDE. A PLT, WHO WAS FLYING AT ABOUT 1350 FT MSL, ALSO SAW THE ACFT SPINNING AT APRX HIS ALT. HE STATED THAT THE ACFT APPEARED TO BE RECOVERING, BUT WAS STILL OUT OF CONTROL, WHEN HE LOST SIGHT OF IT. ANOTHER PERSON IN A WOODED AREA ABOUT 1000 TO 1500 FT FROM THE IMPACT POINT HEARD THE ACFT BUT DID NOT SEE IT. HE SAID THE ENG SOUNDED NORMAL UNTIL SECONDS BEFORE HE HEARD THE PLANE CRASH. AN EXAM OF THE WRECKAGE REVEALED THAT THE LEADING EDGES OF BOTH WINGS WERE COMPRESSED. NO EVIDENCE OF A PREIMPACT/MECHANICAL MALFUNCTION WAS FOUND.
Verbatim NTSB analysis from the NTSB dataset
Sources
NTSB record NYC84FA039
- Event ID
- 20001214X45178
- Case number
- NYC84FA039
- 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: 8555bc4718a113777157c214994d3b7d3e209167de7629ddaf7afe7d478e5458; retrieved 2026-09-21T05:49:09.421Z.