CEN10CA384 · American AA-1
American AA-1 · Accident: collision with terrain/object (non-CFIT) during initial climb
From Las Vegas Municipal Airport (KLVS) to Sedona Airport (KSEZ)
Event
- NTSB case
- CEN10CA384
- 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 AA-1
- Aircraft type
- American AA-1
- 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
- N5660L
- Operator
- Unknown
- Onboard fatalities
- Unknown
- Route
- From Las Vegas Municipal Airport (KLVS), Las Vegas, NMTo Sedona Airport (KSEZ), Sedona, 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
- 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 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
- Personnel issues › Action/decision
Approximate · Coordinates as recorded by the NTSB; no uncertainty radius is established.
NTSB narrative
While en route on a cross-country flight, the pilot decided to land at an upcoming airport to replenish the airplane's fuel supply. He chose that specific airport because he thought that its lower elevation would be a better choice than his original planned stop. As was his normal practice at an unfamiliar airport, he opted to perform a touch-and-go practice takeoff and landing. After a normal touchdown, he input full throttle and began the departure. As the airplane passed the end of the runway, it began to lose altitude. Believing that he could not make it back to the runway, the pilot attempted to locate a suitable area to make a forced landing. The airplane could not make it to his selected area and collided with terrain, separating both wings from the fuselage. The pilot reported that there were no preimpact anomalies with the airframe or engine. The density altitude at the time of the accident was about 10,200 feet.
Probable cause
The pilot's inadequate in-flight planning and failure to attain an adequate airspeed that led to a stall/mush. Contributing to the accident was the lack of suitable terrain for an off-airport landing and the high density altitude.
Verbatim NTSB analysis and probable cause from the NTSB dataset
Sources
NTSB record CEN10CA384
- Event ID
- 20100712X85137
- Case number
- CEN10CA384
- 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: c1c05faf48e5e46e2e739c9b771d485029e80250c910d8b1f4cbaffff2d80094; retrieved 2026-09-15T14:41:07.864Z.
- Corrected after a review of the NTSB narrative, which states these values explicitly: departure. Wrong state; KLVS is Las Vegas Municipal Airport, Las Vegas, New Mexico, consistent with the flight's route to Sedona, AZ by way of Gallup, NM.