WPR14FA239 · American Aviation AA-1A
American Aviation AA-1A · Accident: loss of control in flight while maneuvering
From El Mirage, CA to El Mirage, CA
Event
- NTSB case
- WPR14FA239
- 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
- 2 · 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 AA-1A
- 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
- N9454L
- Operator
- Unknown
- Onboard fatalities
- Unknown
- Route
- From El Mirage, CATo El Mirage, CA
- Aircraft age
- About 43 years (built 1971)
- 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
- Maneuvering · low-altitude flying
- 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
- Destroyed
Cause areas
- Aircraft › Aircraft oper/perf/capability
- Personnel issues › Task performance
Approximate · Coordinates as recorded by the NTSB; no uncertainty radius is established.
NTSB narrative
The pilot was providing airplane rides to family and friends who had assembled at a dry lakebed. He completed two uneventful flights and then departed for a third flight from the lakebed. According to witnesses, the pilot had planned to perform a low pass over the group, and he did so just after takeoff, passing within about 50 ft directly overhead.
The entire accident sequence was captured on video. The airplane dipped its right wing as it passed over the camera position and, after the pass, continued in a climbing right turn, which progressed rapidly to almost 90 degrees of bank. The excessive bank angle resulted in the airplane exceeding its critical angle of attack and experiencing an accelerated stall at an altitude too low for recovery. The airplane then entered the initial stages of a spin before striking the ground in an almost vertical attitude.
Postaccident examination of the airframe and engine did not reveal any evidence of preimpact mechanical malfunction or failure. Although the reason for the aggressive turn could not be determined, the pilot's overflight of the group while maneuvering at low altitude is consistent with an intentionally-performed ostentatious display.
Probable cause
The pilot's loss of airplane control while intentionally maneuvering close to the ground, which resulted in the airplane exceeding its critical angle of attack in a steep bank and entering an accelerated stall.
Verbatim NTSB analysis and probable cause from the NTSB dataset
Sources
NTSB record WPR14FA239
- Event ID
- 20140609X55515
- Case number
- WPR14FA239
- 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: 71085d1c856b9761dc30a94d31787a4ed7d0723a6a0703918812f7d1d6b82b8e; retrieved 2026-09-14T17:19:16.581Z.