MIA02FA162 · Gulfstream American AA-5A
Gulfstream American AA-5A · Accident: loss of engine power during initial climb
From Greeneville Municipal Airport (GCY) to an unrecorded destination
Narrative check · The NTSB narrative appears to contradict this record's damage. Values are shown as recorded, not corrected; compare with the narrative.
Event
- NTSB case
- MIA02FA162
- 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
- 1 · 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
Gulfstream American AA-5A
- Aircraft type
- Gulfstream 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
- N9807U
- Operator
- Unknown
- Onboard fatalities
- Unknown
- Route
- From Greeneville Municipal Airport (GCY), Greeneville, TNTo 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
- 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 engine power
- 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 Possible conflict
Cause areas
- Pilot in command › Airspeed(vs), not maintained
- Pilot in command › Reason for occurrence undetermined
Approximate · Coordinates from the NTSB case API, which marks them as estimated or does not say; no uncertainty radius is established.
NTSB narrative
Witnesses reported observing the pilot repeatedly trying to start the engine for several minutes, and stated that after at least 5 minutes the engine started but immediately ceased operating. The witnesses further stated that the pilot then exited the airplane, did something to the engine, and then got back in the airplane and it started. It would not idle normally and required a higher power setting in order for it to remain operating. A witness said that the pilot maintained a high power setting to keep the engine operating, and taxied for takeoff. The witness further stated that he was about 50 to 75 feet away and he could hear the engine "struggling" to operate. During initial climb after takeoff, other witnesses reported hearing the airplane and stated that they heard three loud noises, each sounding like a "backfire", and after the last backfire there was silence. One witness reported looking up and seeing the propeller not rotating, and all witnesses said they saw the airplane enter a turn. They said there was no engine noise, and the airplane glided while turning as if to return to land at the airport, but they last sight of it as it descended below the trees. After the airplane disappeared from sight below the trees the witnesses stated that there was a loud "boom" and they saw smoke billow up in the air. Examination of the accident scene showed that the airplane struck trees and descended, impacting the ground, about 0.5 mile from the center of the airport, north of the departure end of runway 05. The airplane had come apart as it impacted the trees and the ground and a postcrash fire had ensued. The pilot received fatal injuries. Examination of the airframe, the flight controls and the engine did not reveal any pre-accident anomalies.
Probable cause
A loss of engine power for undetermined reasons and the pilot's decision to continue flight with a known equipment deficiency. Also causal was the pilot's failure to maintain airspeed which resulted in a stall.
Verbatim NTSB analysis and probable cause from the NTSB dataset
Sources
NTSB record MIA02FA162
- Event ID
- 20020910X01565
- Case number
- MIA02FA162
- 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: 0c0acaa10a3b50c5aef6f838727a42c1125d152cceffdacbfcddf35e1e983e3f; retrieved 2026-09-20T19:53:30.854Z.