IAD01LA088 · Grumman American AA-5B
Grumman American AA-5B · Accident: loss of control on ground/water while taxiing
From Donegal Springs Airpark (N71) to N71
Event
- NTSB case
- IAD01LA088
- 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-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
- N28665
- Operator
- Unknown
- Onboard fatalities
- Unknown
- Route
- From Donegal Springs Airpark (N71), Marietta, PATo N71
- 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
- Taxi
- 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 on ground/water
- 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
- Landing gear, normal brake system › Failure
- Pilot in command › Operation with known deficiencies in equipment, performed
Approximate · Coordinates from the NTSB case API, which marks them as estimated or does not say; no uncertainty radius is established.
NTSB narrative
The pilot reported that he knew the right brake was "soft," prior to his intended departure, "but he felt it would be ok for this flight." As the pilot taxied to the runway for departure, the right brake "failed" and the airplane traveled off the end of the runway and down a 10-foot embankment. Examination of the airplane revealed that the right brake lining was worn "significantly," which permitted the brake cylinder to extend beyond its limits, and the brake fluid to seep past the cylinder seal. Examination of the airplane logbooks revealed that the last annual inspection was performed 11 months prior to the accident. No maintenance had been performed to the brakes since that date.
Probable cause
The pilot's operation of the airplane with known deficiencies. Also causal was the loss of brake pressure, which resulted in the failure of the right brake, and subsequent loss of control of the airplane.
Verbatim NTSB analysis and probable cause from the NTSB dataset
Sources
NTSB record IAD01LA088
- Event ID
- 20010912X01924
- Case number
- IAD01LA088
- 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: 537f1b5ab574a1b9c56fc94b64cadd6d5f89aeb8c506ddddcb89f96ceb3b481f; retrieved 2026-09-22T11:36:46.492Z.