DFW07LA118 · Grumman American AA-5B
Grumman American AA-5B · Accident: loss of engine power on approach
From Coulter Field (KCFD) to Hilltop Lakes Airport (0TE4)
Event
- NTSB case
- DFW07LA118
- 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
- N28730
- Operator
- Justin Smith
- Onboard fatalities
- Unknown
- Route
- From Coulter Field (KCFD), Bryan, TXTo Hilltop Lakes Airport (0TE4), Hilltop Lakes, TX
- 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
- 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
- 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
- Fuel system, carburetor › Ice
Approximate · Coordinates as recorded by the NTSB; no uncertainty radius is established.
NTSB narrative
The 300-hour private pilot reported that the airplane entered an un-commanded nose down pitch and banked to the left while the airplane was established on final approach to runway 16. The pilot and passenger were seriously injured. An examination of the engine was conducted. Examination of the engine 180-horsepower engine did not reveal any mechanical anomalies that could have prevented normal engine operation. The fuel cells were breached; however, the operator reported that the airplane departed the airport with a full load of fuel, and according to the engine tach, the flight's duration was 36 minutes. According to icing probability chart, the weather conditions at the time of the accident were favorable for the probability of "serious" carburetor icing at glide power. Examination of the airplane and engine revealed that the carburetor heat control was in the "off" or "cold" position. The pilot and passenger were seriously injured. Weather reported 30 miles south of the accident site at the time of the accident stated winds were from 120 degrees at 9 knots gusting to 14 knots.
Probable cause
The loss of engine power due to carburetor ice. Contributing factors were the lack of suitable terrain for a forced landing and the weather conditions that were conducive to carburetor ice.
Verbatim NTSB analysis and probable cause from the NTSB dataset
Sources
NTSB record DFW07LA118
- Event ID
- 20070530X00656
- Case number
- DFW07LA118
- 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: a67a31760a86e4406dd4df72e46c80202cf0e63a33d3fc206bc7bb72e49b3dc3; retrieved 2026-09-21T08:48:45.757Z.