GAA16CA066 · Grumman American AVN. CORP. AA 5 B
Grumman American AVN. CORP. AA 5 B · Accident: loss of control in flight on approach
From Fort Meade Executive Airport (FME) to Williamsburg Jamestown Airport (JGG)
Narrative check · The NTSB narrative appears to contradict this record's departure or destination. Values are shown as recorded, not corrected; compare with the narrative.
Event
- NTSB case
- GAA16CA066
- 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
- Instrument Meteorological Cond
Grumman American AVN. CORP. AA 5 B
- Aircraft type
- Grumman American 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
- N28295
- Operator
- Unknown
- Onboard fatalities
- Unknown
- Route Possible conflict
- From Fort Meade Executive Airport (FME), FORT MEADE(ODENTON), MDTo Williamsburg Jamestown Airport (JGG), Williamsburg, VA
- Aircraft age
- About 38 years (built 1977)
- 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
- Approach · circling (IFR)
- 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
- Environmental issues › Conditions/weather/phenomena
- Personnel issues › Action/decision
- Personnel issues › Psychological
- Personnel issues › Task performance
Approximate · Coordinates as recorded by the NTSB; no uncertainty radius is established.
NTSB narrative
The pilot reported that during a flight under night instrument flight rules, he exited instrument metrological conditions (IMC) "400 feet high and fast" during the instrument approach. The pilot continued the landing and reported that he touched down more than half way down the wet runway, and then decided to abort the landing. Instead of performing the published missed approach procedure, the pilot turned left and entered the traffic pattern.
During the left base, the pilot reported that he reentered IMC, heard the stall warning horn, and felt buffeting. During the inadvertent aerodynamic stall, the pilot added power but continued the descent to land. The pilot reported that he regained visual reference to the runway lights on final approach and realized he was too low. As he attempted to add full power to go-around, the airplane impacted terrain about 1,300 feet west of the runway in a left wing down attitude. The vertical stabilizer, fuselage, and both wings sustained substantial damage.
The pilot reported there were no mechanical malfunctions or failures with the airplane that would have precluded normal operation.
Probable cause
The pilot's decision to fly a traffic pattern following an aborted instrument landing in night instrument metrological conditions, which resulted in a loss of visual reference to the runway, an inadvertent aerodynamic stall, and a collision with terrain.
Verbatim NTSB analysis and probable cause from the NTSB dataset
Sources
NTSB record GAA16CA066
- Event ID
- 20151202X31330
- Case number
- GAA16CA066
- 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: local date, investigation status. Values present in the bulk record are kept.
- The date is the local date; the NTSB stores the UTC date 2015-12-02.
- API snapshot SHA-256: 90972c8a59b1c33d6eb250d42408e5e2cc2f6ea0bebaba7f9e9683fc6efb77a3; retrieved 2026-09-16T03:00:11.320Z.