ERA12CA523 · Grumman American AVN. CORP. AA-1B
Grumman American AVN. CORP. AA-1B · Accident: loss of control in flight during initial climb
From Fort Meade Executive Airport (FME) to Bedford County Airport (HMZ)
Event
- NTSB case
- ERA12CA523
- 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-1B
- Aircraft type
- Grumman 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
- N9858L
- Operator
- Unknown
- Onboard fatalities
- Unknown
- Route
- From Fort Meade Executive Airport (FME), Ft. Meade, MDTo Bedford County Airport (HMZ), Bedford, PA
- 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 control in flight
- 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 › Task performance
Approximate · Coordinates from the NTSB case API, which marks them as estimated or does not say; no uncertainty radius is established.
NTSB narrative
The pilot stated that the airplane began to porpoise after landing. When his efforts to correct the porpoise and continue the landing were not successful, the pilot decided to go around. During the attempted go-around, the pilot did not believe that he was going to clear some trees and decided to land the airplane in a field. The nose and right main landing gear collapsed after touchdown, resulting in substantial damage to the fuselage and both wings. The pilot stated that there were no preaccident mechanical issues and that the engine was producing full power. However, he added that the airplane’s engine only produced 100 horsepower and that he did not feel as though he was gaining enough altitude and was “behind the airplane” during the go-around. Examination of the airplane revealed that carburetor heat control was "ON," the throttle was in the full open position, and the mixture control was in the full rich position. Review of the airplane's owner's manual revealed that the pilot should immediately apply full power and turn the carburetor heat off during a go-around. Further review of the owner's manual indicated that, based on the airplane’s basic empty weight, the weights of the occupants, and the fuel on board, the airplane was operating at or near its published maximum gross weight during the accident.
Probable cause
The pilot's failure to maintain control of the airplane during the landing and subsequent go-around. Contributing to the accident was the pilot's failure to shutoff the carburetor heat during the attempted go-around and the weight at which the airplane was being operated.
Verbatim NTSB analysis and probable cause from the NTSB dataset
Sources
NTSB record ERA12CA523
- Event ID
- 20120823X95947
- Case number
- ERA12CA523
- 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, coordinates. 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: bcf4e73b6ef3005c5539af900e29f0e10647903c139405c663a4eaffc407274d; retrieved 2026-09-15T19:29:46.695Z.