IAD01LA068 · Grumman American AA-5A
Grumman American AA-5A · Accident: partial loss of engine power (mechanical failure) en route
From Hartford Brainard Airport (HFD) to Reading Regional Airport (Carl A Spaatz Field) (RDG)
Event
- NTSB case
- IAD01LA068
- 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
- Unknown
- 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-5A
- 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
- N27221
- Operator
- Unknown
- Onboard fatalities
- Unknown
- Route
- From Hartford Brainard Airport (HFD), Hartford, CTTo Reading Regional Airport (Carl A Spaatz Field) (RDG), Reading, 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
- Partial loss of engine power (mechanical failure)
- 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
- Pole
- 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 › Airspeed, excessive
- Pilot in command › Altitude, misjudged
Approximate · Estimated position: the centre of Danbury, CT, the place the record names. Not the accident site.
NTSB narrative
The airplane was in cruise flight at 6,500 feet, about 7 miles west of the airport, when the engine lost partial power. The pilot contacted Danbury tower, proceeded direct to the airport, and circled about 1 mile west of the runway to lose altitude. The controller provided weather information and asked the pilot if he would like to land on runway 26 or 35. The pilot opted for runway 26 because it was longer. Upon passing through 3,000 feet, the controller asked the pilot if he could make a left 270 degree turn, and the pilot acknowledged. About a minute later, the pilot reported that the engine was running rough, but still producing power. While on final approach, the pilot made s-turns, and the controller gave him the option to make another 270 degree turn to lose altitude. On final approach, witnesses observed the airplane in a "dramatic" slip, and that it was too high and fast to land on the 4,422 foot long runway. At mid-field, the airplane was still "extremely fast" at a height level with the control tower, about 62 feet. Near the end of the runway, the pilot applied power to go-around, but the engine did not respond. The airplane continued to descend and collided with a pole about a 1/4- mile from the end of runway 8. Examination of the engine revealed that the #3 exhaust stack exhibited a 3/4-inch wide horizontal crack along the rim of the weld line. Additionally, the pilot had a 3,135 foot long perpendicular runway available for landing.
Probable cause
the pilot's misjudged altitude and excessive airspeed resulting in a collision with a pole. A factor was the cracked exhaust stack, which resulted in a partial loss of engine power.
Verbatim NTSB analysis and probable cause from the NTSB dataset
Sources
NTSB record IAD01LA068
- Event ID
- 20010703X01297
- Case number
- IAD01LA068
- 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: c032c4bb9977551f81314ef2be88d6a1afe9ba59536ab1866ded5d7f72891108; retrieved 2026-09-21T19:56:06.257Z.