ERA09LA055 · American General Acft Corp AG5B
American General Acft Corp AG5B · Accident: loss of engine power (partial) during initial climb
From Wing South Airpark (FA37) to Wing South Airpark (FA37)
Event
- NTSB case
- ERA09LA055
- 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 General Acft Corp AG5B
- Aircraft type
- American General AG5
- 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
- N1191W
- Operator
- Unknown
- Onboard fatalities
- Unknown
- Route
- From Wing South Airpark (FA37), Naples, FLTo Wing South Airpark (FA37), Naples, FL
- 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
- Loss of engine power (partial)
- 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
- Destroyed
Cause areas
- Not determined › Not determined
Approximate · Coordinates as recorded by the NTSB; no uncertainty radius is established.
NTSB narrative
The airplane was fully loaded and departed from a 4,400-foot-long asphalt runway, in a slight tailwind. The owner of the airplane loaned it to the pilot and witnessed the accident takeoff. The airplane lifted off about half-way down the runway, climbed approximately 150 feet and appeared to be well above the height of the trees. It then started to sink and disappeared into the trees at an increased pitch attitude. According to a pilot-rated passenger, the liftoff and initial climb appeared normal, but soon it was apparent that the airplane was not accelerating. The passenger mentioned to the pilot that the airspeed seemed to be stagnating and he confirmed the same concern. The pilot and passenger both checked for full throttle position and rpm, which was at 2,150, instead of an expected rpm of 2,300. The passenger stated that at that point the only option was to lower the nose in an attempt to increase airspeed. When there was no increase in airspeed, they both realized that the airplane would impact trees. The pilot continued to fly the airplane straight and level to the point of impact. Examination of the wreckage, including a test-run of the engine to full power, did not reveal any evidence of a preexisting mechanical failure or malfunction. The airplane was destroyed in the accident.
Probable cause
A partial loss of engine power during takeoff for undetermined reasons.
Verbatim NTSB analysis and probable cause from the NTSB dataset
Sources
NTSB record ERA09LA055
- Event ID
- 20081114X10103
- Case number
- ERA09LA055
- Dataset
- full-current
- Source SHA-256
- 5cf380f0061817c0331a6b2d8cc7e0ee3a79bea469a1001dc5c10e56f35f5ab3
Source notes (5)
- 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: d00813e38a58fa285b4b5f7489b64991a8b1cf2342bfb0405e897667fa107d07; retrieved 2026-09-15T10:33:04.944Z.
- Corrected after a review of the NTSB narrative, which states these values explicitly: damage. The narrative states "The airplane was destroyed in the accident".