NYC01FA169 · Grumman American AA-1C
Hortman Aviation Services Grumman American AA-1C · Accident: loss of control in flight on approach
From Northeast Philadelphia Airport (PNE) to South Jersey Regional Airport (VAY)
Event
- NTSB case
- NYC01FA169
- 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
- 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-1C
- Aircraft type
- Grumman 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
- N9616U
- Operator
- Hortman Aviation Services
- Onboard fatalities
- Unknown
- Route
- From Northeast Philadelphia Airport (PNE), Philadelphia, PATo South Jersey Regional Airport (VAY), Medford, NJ
- 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 · VFR pattern turn to base
- 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 › Flight controls, improper use of
Approximate · Coordinates from the NTSB case API, which marks them as estimated or does not say; no uncertainty radius is established.
NTSB narrative
According to a witness, the airplane was observed making a steep turn to a right base. During the turn, the airplane's tail abruptly went up, and the airplane entered a 2 1/2 spin to the right prior to impacting the ground. There was no evidence of a pre-existing mechanical failure or malfunction. According to the FAA publication Airplane Flying Handbook, section on accelerated stalls and cross control stalls, ...Stalls which result from abrupt maneuvers tend to be more rapid, or severe, than the unaccelerated stalls, and because they occur at higher-than-normal airspeeds, they may be unexpected by an inexperienced pilot. Failure to take immediate steps toward recovery when an accelerated stall occurs may result in a complete loss of flight control, notably, power-on spins... a cross control stall...is most apt to occur during a poorly planned and executed base-to-final approach turn...the airplane often stalls with little warning. The nose may pitch down, the inside wing may suddenly drop and the airplane may continue to roll to an inverted position...It is imperative that this type of stall not occur during an actual approach to a landing since recovery may be impossible prior to ground contact due to the low altitude...."
Probable cause
The pilot's improper use of the flight controls while turning to base, which resulted in a stall/spin and subsequent impact with the ground.
Verbatim NTSB analysis and probable cause from the NTSB dataset
Sources
NTSB record NYC01FA169
- Event ID
- 20010713X01420
- Case number
- NYC01FA169
- 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, coordinates. 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: bf6b6f885c253fc4a1d74c1f09c02b5d5d1cc8d599d3e9747e351a48148f68bd; retrieved 2026-09-20T20:28:18.913Z.