MIA08CA084 · Grumman American AA5B
Grumman American AA5B · Accident: collision during takeoff/landing on approach
From Linden Airport (KLDJ) to K9B1 · Marlboro, MA
Narrative check · The NTSB narrative appears to contradict this record's departure or destination. Values are shown as recorded, not corrected; compare with the narrative.
Event
- NTSB case
- MIA08CA084
- 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 AA5B
- Aircraft type
- Grumman American AA5
- 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
- N333FT
- Operator
- Robert C. Newberg · private individual
- Onboard fatalities
- Unknown
- Route Narrative disagrees
- From Linden Airport (KLDJ), Linden, NJTo K9B1 · Marlboro, MA
- 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 · VFR pattern final
- 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
- Collision during takeoff/landing
- 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
- 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
- Aircraft › Aircraft oper/perf/capability
- Personnel issues › Task performance
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 stated he was on final, on the centerline and on target for the "numbers" of runway 32. He cleared the first set of trees but he encountered a wind gust that slowed his groundspeed and caused the airplane to contact the top of the second line of trees. This caused him to land left of the runway. The pilot stated there were no mechanical failures or malfunctions of the airplane or any of its systems prior to the accident. The responding FAA representative stated that the airplane clipped the top of a group of trees at the approached end of runway 32. After clipping the tree tops, the airplane's nose lowered toward the runway. The pilot raised the nose of the airplane to flare. The left wing dropped causing the airplane to veer off the left side of the runway. The airplane bounced three times. On the third bounce, the left wing impacted a group of trees, causing the airplane to rotate 180 degrees on the ground before coming to a stop. The winds at Hanscom Field (KBED), Bedford, Massachusetts, at 1256 EDT, were from 300 degrees at 18 knots, with gusts to 24 knots. Hanscom Field is located 14 miles on bearing 050 degrees from the accident site.
Probable cause
The pilot's inadequate compensation for wind gusts while on final approach.
Verbatim NTSB analysis and probable cause from the NTSB dataset
Sources
NTSB record MIA08CA084
- Event ID
- 20080518X00692
- Case number
- MIA08CA084
- 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: 5970b75bf93cc41e55dac09f4c96b8307889c82c561db7b0d541c59c099acc7b; retrieved 2026-09-15T09:40:02.980Z.