MIA07LA155 · Grumman AA-5A
Grumman AA-5A · Accident: total loss of engine power (mechanical failure) during initial climb
From Ashland Regional Airport (DWU) to Grayson County Airport (M20)
Event
- NTSB case
- MIA07LA155
- 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
Grumman AA-5A
- Aircraft type
- Grumman 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
- N26442
- Operator
- William G. Steven · private individual
- Onboard fatalities
- Unknown
- Route
- From Ashland Regional Airport (DWU), Worthington, KYTo Grayson County Airport (M20), Leitchfield, KY
- 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
- Total loss of engine power (mechanical failure)
- 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 › Operation with known deficiencies in equipment, continued
Approximate · Coordinates as recorded by the NTSB; no uncertainty radius is established.
NTSB narrative
The pilot replaced the accident airplane’s vacuum pump on the day of the accident. During the airplane's flight to a nearby airport, the engine lost the majority of its oil. At the destination airport, the engine was examined for the leak. According to witness staements, the vacuum pump had been installed incorrectly. The discrepancy was corrected and the pilot added 4 quarts of oil to the engine and attempted to return to his home airport; however, the engine overheated during the initial phase of the flight and the pilot returned to the departing airport. He purchased more engine oil, servicing the engine to the full level. Although several people suggested that the pilot have the engine further examined, he declined saying that he had "Get-Home-Itis." Once again the pilot took off for his home airport, but the engine lost all power during the initial climb. The pilot ditched the airplane in a nearby river in a flat attitude, where it submerged. Examination of the wreckage revealed that the No. 4 engine piston had separated from the crankshaft. The pilot did not hold an airframe and powerplant certificate.
Probable cause
The separation of the engine's No. 4 piston from the crankshaft for unidentified reasons and the pilot's continued operation with known equipment deficiencies.
Verbatim NTSB analysis and probable cause from the NTSB dataset
Sources
NTSB record MIA07LA155
- Event ID
- 20071004X01514
- Case number
- MIA07LA155
- 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: 4b15670aa0966bed43ca908539c7057acd79582990b2b271b52c39d44ec4cafb; retrieved 2026-09-20T16:15:32.930Z.