ERA10CA046 · American Aviation AA1 A
American Aviation AA1 A · Accident: collision with terrain/object (non-CFIT) en route
From Lake Wales Municipal Airport (X07) to Lake Wales Municipal Airport (X07)
Event
- NTSB case
- ERA10CA046
- 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 Aviation AA1 A
- Aircraft type
- American AA1
- 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
- N7266L
- Operator
- Unknown
- Onboard fatalities
- Unknown
- Route
- From Lake Wales Municipal Airport (X07), Lake Wales, FLTo Lake Wales Municipal Airport (X07), Lake Wales, 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
- En route · cruise
- 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 with terrain/object (non-CFIT)
- 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
During a local sightseeing flight, the pilot descended through an altitude of 1,000 feet to be able to see a waterway below him. As the pilot performed the low flight maneuver, the airplane impacted a power line, causing the vertical stabilizer to separate from the airplane. The pilot reported experiencing resistance and a vibration with the airplane, followed by a loss of control. He was able to subsequently perform a forced landing straight ahead, during which the airplane sustained damage to the nose gear and to the rudder. A witness stated that he heard a low flying airplane, followed by a loud noise similar to a "pop," and then he observed the airplane dragging a cable. Examination of the accident site by a Federal Aviation Administration inspector, revealed the vertical stabilizer, with 150 feet of power line still attached. It was located approximately 300 feet aft of the wreckage. No pre-impact malfunctions were reported by the pilot or identified during the post-accident examination.
Probable cause
The pilot's failure to maintain clearance from a power line.
Verbatim NTSB analysis and probable cause from the NTSB dataset
Sources
NTSB record ERA10CA046
- Event ID
- 20091103X65043
- Case number
- ERA10CA046
- 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: c91fa4d2aba1d9ba52cd0f38d5abfa4e22fa32958d613331435e79c65de8c293; retrieved 2026-09-15T13:27:52.073Z.