WPR09CA106 · Grumman AA-5
Plane Options Grumman AA-5 · Accident: hard landing
From Chandler Municipal Airport (CHD) to Payson Airport (PAN)
Event
- NTSB case
- WPR09CA106
- 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-5
- 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
- N5423L
- Operator
- Plane Options
- Onboard fatalities
- Unknown
- Route
- From Chandler Municipal Airport (CHD), Chandler, AZTo Payson Airport (PAN), Payson, AZ
- 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
- Hard landing
- 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
- Personnel issues › Task performance
Approximate · Coordinates as recorded by the NTSB; no uncertainty radius is established.
NTSB narrative
The AWOS reported winds were from 101 degrees at 11 knots, but another airplane was landing on runway 24, so the pilot announced that he would follow that airplane for landing. His approach was high and fast and he applied full flaps early and reduced the engine power to idle. The pilot reported encountering gusty wind conditions during the approach, but felt that he had the landing under control. The airplane was nearing touchdown, about midfield, when it suddenly descended and landed hard on the runway and bounced back into the air. The pilot said that the airspeed was about 60 miles per hour (mph), with no stall warning horn heard. The airplane was aligned with the runway centerline, and he felt that the airplane was under control, so he applied a small amount of power to cushion the touchdown. The airplane touched down and then bounced back into the air again. The pilot said that the bounce was smaller and it appeared that the airplane was slower as well. The airplane finally settled onto the runway; however, the right main landing gear touched down with more force and the airplane veered to the left of the runway and into a drainage swale. He was worried that the airplane would run into buildings or other aircraft, and since the airspeed was at 55 mph, he decided to get the airplane back into the air. He proceeded with the go-around, and once the airplane accelerated to 80 mph, he retracted the flaps. At this point, the right wing struck the windsock pole and the airplane began to sink back to the gound. He placed the airplane in a nose high attitude in hopes of clearing the airport perimeter fence; however, the airplane struck the fence and cartwheeled before coming to rest upright.
Probable cause
The pilot's inadequate recovery from a bounced landing and failure to maintain directional control. Contributing to the accident was the crosswind condition.
Verbatim NTSB analysis and probable cause from the NTSB dataset
Sources
NTSB record WPR09CA106
- Event ID
- 20090202X32728
- Case number
- WPR09CA106
- 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: 5cd21ad924d2c2aae3f70ac5ae3953cdee7bc310531a9e61f4efe7ad72d1e176; retrieved 2026-09-15T10:43:36.704Z.