LAX08CA125 · Grumman AA-5A
Grumman AA-5A · Accident: collision during takeoff/landing during initial climb
From Atlanta, ID to Unknown
Event
- NTSB case
- LAX08CA125
- 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 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
- N9720U
- Operator
- Unknown
- Onboard fatalities
- Unknown
- Route
- From Atlanta, IDTo Unknown
- 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
- 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
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 reported that both he and the passenger walked the runway and removed debris from it, including sticks and rocks, prior to takeoff. The runway had softened due to snow and water runoff and the pilot said he experienced slight sinking conditions, but it was not muddy or sloppy. The pilot elected to depart to the south in order to takeoff on a downhill slope. The pilot performed a soft field takeoff by pulling the yoke back to reduce friction from the nose wheel. About 40 miles per hour (mph), the airplane hit several ruts and slowed down. He initiated rotation at 60 mph, but could not gain sufficient altitude prior to hitting a tree at the departure end of the runway, causing substantial damage. The pilot reported that there were no mechanical malfunctions or failures of the airplane.
Probable cause
The pilot's failure to attain and maintain an adequate airspeed during the takeoff to clear trees during the initial climb. Contributing factors were the soft and rough nature of the short runway surface.
Verbatim NTSB analysis and probable cause from the NTSB dataset
Sources
NTSB record LAX08CA125
- Event ID
- 20080611X00827
- Case number
- LAX08CA125
- 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: db5176f22ec0ca1f263593fbe1e2c172aee8113427f9f1dcf8d139f837adfe4e; retrieved 2026-09-15T09:44:59.448Z.