CHI08CA076 · American Aviation AA-1A
American Aviation AA-1A · Accident: system/component malfunction/failure (non-power) during landing
From Milaca Municipal Airport (18Y) to Circle T Airport (WS77)
Event
- NTSB case
- CHI08CA076
- 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
American Aviation AA-1A
- Aircraft type
- American AA-1
- 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
- N9483L
- Operator
- Unknown
- Onboard fatalities
- Unknown
- Route
- From Milaca Municipal Airport (18Y), Milaca, MNTo Circle T Airport (WS77), Grantsburg, WI
- 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
- Landing · landing roll
- Defining eventThe 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
- System/component malfunction/failure (non-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
- Aircraft › Aircraft systems
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 was performing touch-and-go landings on a turf runway covered with approximately 1-inch of wet snow and slush. The pilot had performed four touch-and-goes without incident. During the fifth landing roll, the pilot initially applied brake pressure to slow the airplane, but then released the brakes to allow the airplane to roll further down the runway. The pilot stated that the left brake seized and the airplane swerved to the left. The airplane was substantially damaged when it impacted a snowbank and nosed over. A post-accident inspection revealed that the left wheel would not rotate because of ice buildup between the rotor and the brake pad. The airplane was equipped with a castering nose gear and on-ground steering was accomplished solely by differential braking.
Probable cause
The seizure of the left brake due to a buildup of ice between the rotor and brake pad. Contributing to the accident was the snow and slush covered runway, and the snowbank.
Verbatim NTSB analysis and probable cause from the NTSB dataset
Sources
NTSB record CHI08CA076
- Event ID
- 20080324X00372
- Case number
- CHI08CA076
- Dataset
- full-current
- Source SHA-256
- 5cf380f0061817c0331a6b2d8cc7e0ee3a79bea469a1001dc5c10e56f35f5ab3
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: ccbe8cd1e3a6ec433a8e6279c9019c243bd5ea38698f9cfd47880078d2198945; retrieved 2026-09-15T09:27:36.916Z.