ERA09CA118 · Grumman American AVN. CORP. AA-5 Traveler
Grumman American AVN. CORP. AA-5 Traveler · Accident: loss of control on ground during landing
From Wilmington International Airport (ILM) to Brunswick Golden Isles Airport (BQK)
Event
- NTSB case
- ERA09CA118
- 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 AVN. CORP. AA-5 Traveler
- Aircraft type
- Grumman American 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
- N7138L
- Operator
- Unknown
- Onboard fatalities
- Unknown
- Route
- From Wilmington International Airport (ILM), Wilmington, NCTo Brunswick Golden Isles Airport (BQK), Brunswick, GA
- 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 · flare/touchdown
- 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 control on ground
- 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 › Action/decision
Approximate · Coordinates as recorded by the NTSB; no uncertainty radius is established.
NTSB narrative
While landing, the pilot approached the runway in a "crab" and with the right wing down, into the wind. The pilot stated that a "strong gust" of wind pushed the right wing toward the ground as the main gear touched down in a nose-up attitude. The airplane became airborne; the pilot decided to initiate a go-around and applied full power. As the airplane gained altitude, another gust of wind rolled the airplane to the right. The pilot applied full ailerons and rudder authority to level the wings, then realized the airplane was headed towards trees that it would be unable to clear. The pilot then pulled the throttle to idle and flared the airplane into a stall as the airplane descended into the trees. The wind at the time of the accident was 40 degrees right of the airplane's nose at 12 knots, gusting to 20 knots.
Probable cause
The pilot's failure to maintain control of the airplane during the landing flare. Contributing to the accident were the gusting winds.
Verbatim NTSB analysis and probable cause from the NTSB dataset
Sources
NTSB record ERA09CA118
- Event ID
- 20081231X95619
- Case number
- ERA09CA118
- 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. 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: 354c57a4ca83d32174a1b3483e760b570a4ff20be8b02e932a8207fbc0c899e8; retrieved 2026-09-15T10:39:20.987Z.