IAD02LA032 · Grumman American AA-5B
Grumman American AA-5B · Accident: loss of control in flight during initial climb
From 22B · HARWINTON, CT to Igor I Sikorsky Memorial Airport (BDR)
Event
- NTSB case
- IAD02LA032
- 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
- N81072
- Operator
- Unknown
- Onboard fatalities
- Unknown
- Route
- From 22B · HARWINTON, CTTo Igor I Sikorsky Memorial Airport (BDR), Bridgeport, CT
- 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
- Initial climb
- 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/mush; Tree(s)
- 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, not obtained
- Pilot in command › Stall/mush, inadvertent
Approximate · Estimated position: the centre of Harwinton, CT, the place the record names. Not the accident site.
NTSB narrative
Prior to take-off, the pilot performed an engine run-up, and used a checklist to prepare the airplane for a normal take-off. The pilot said that the elevator trim was set to the take-off position, flight control continuity was performed, the flaps were retracted, and the engine run-up was normal. He then lined the airplane up on the runway, applied full power, and rotated at 65 knots. As the airplane began to climb, the pilot said that he tried to maintain 65 knots. When the airplane reached an altitude of approximately 40-50 feet above the ground, the left wing dropped and the stall horn came on. The stall horn remained on as the airplane turned to the left and collided with trees. Examination of the Gulfstream American AA-5B Tiger Pilot Operating Handbook (POH) revealed that for a normal take-off a pilot should, "accelerate to 50 KIAS before applying a light back pressure on the control wheel to lift off the nose wheel...When airborne, accelerate to the desired climb speed." According to the POH, the best angle of climb speed was 70 knots and normal climb out speed was 90 knots. Examination of the airplane revealed that there were no mechanical deficiencies.
Probable cause
pilot's failure to obtain adequate airspeed during take-off, which resulted in an aerodynamic stall.
Verbatim NTSB analysis and probable cause from the NTSB dataset
Sources
NTSB record IAD02LA032
- Event ID
- 20020302X00300
- Case number
- IAD02LA032
- 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: 13138f4fc34d9085bf046d1f1012a8061a55fc2ce5e5b93eef9423317ba07d0f; retrieved 2026-09-21T19:46:43.634Z.