GAA17CA379 · American General Acft Corp AG5 B
American General Acft Corp AG5 B · Accident: loss of control in flight on approach
From Buchanan Field (CCR) to Rio Vista Municipal Airport (O88)
Event
- NTSB case
- GAA17CA379
- 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 General Acft Corp AG5 B
- Aircraft type
- American General AG5
- 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
- N321MW
- Operator
- Unknown
- Onboard fatalities
- Unknown
- Route
- From Buchanan Field (CCR), Concord, CATo Rio Vista Municipal Airport (O88), Rio Vista, CA
- Aircraft age
- About 26 years (built 1991)
- 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 · VFR go-around
- 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 student pilot reported that, during his second low approach, the airplane was stable at 75 knots and full flaps and about 20 ft above ground level (agl). He added, that about 5 to 10 ft agl, he applied full power and began to "slowly" retract the flaps. Encountering what he described as "wind shear," he reported that the airplane became "vertical" and that he lost directional control. He added that he immediately banked to the right and applied full right rudder. Subsequently, the airplane's left wing struck the ground. The airplane came to rest off the right side of the runway.
The airplane sustained substantial damage to the left wing.
The student pilot reported that there were no preaccident mechanical failures or malfunctions with the airplane that would have precluded normal operation.
The student pilot reported checking the airport's automated weather observation system, which was reporting wind from 120° at 12 knots, before the approach. He further reported the sky condition as clear, temperature 84°F, dewpoint 53°F, and wind gusts to 20 knots. The pilot selected runway 15.
As a recommendation, the student pilot reported that he should have avoided areas with gusts greater than 10 knots.
Probable cause
The student pilot’s failure to maintain directional control during a go-around in gusting wind conditions.
Verbatim NTSB analysis and probable cause from the NTSB dataset
Sources
NTSB record GAA17CA379
- Event ID
- 20170702X33610
- Case number
- GAA17CA379
- 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, coordinates. Values present in the bulk record are kept.
- The date is the local date; the NTSB stores the UTC date 2017-07-03.
- API snapshot SHA-256: e62f77bfa47c5f4b975be5fe3f014662076bfe76e484d9c50c2022ce60b2ead5; retrieved 2026-09-16T05:29:04.340Z.