GAA18CA343 · American AA 1
American AA 1 · Accident: fuel exhaustion during initial climb
From Spruce Creek Airport (7FL6) to Spruce Creek Airport (7FL6)
Event
- NTSB case
- GAA18CA343
- 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
- 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
- N5787L
- Operator
- Unknown
- Onboard fatalities
- Unknown
- Route
- From Spruce Creek Airport (7FL6), Daytona Beach, FLTo Spruce Creek Airport (7FL6), Daytona Beach, FL
- Aircraft age
- About 49 years (built 1969)
- 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
- Fuel exhaustion
- Also codedOther events the NTSB coded in the sequence, such as a wire strike after a loss of power. Flight Findings uses them for its kinds of event. Glossary
- Tree(s)
- 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 › Fluids/miscellaneous hardware
- Personnel issues › Task performance
Approximate · Coordinates as recorded by the NTSB; no uncertainty radius is established.
NTSB narrative
The pilot reported that, shortly after departure, about 1,000 ft above ground level, the engine lost total power. While searching for an off-airport landing spot, he made a right turn toward the airport, positioned the fuel selector knob toward the second tank, and attempted to restart the engine. The engine restarted briefly but then lost power. He attempted to restart the engine again after he repositioned the fuel selector back to the original tank, but the engine did not start. He conducted a forced landing in a field with trees and heavy vegetation 2 miles west of the airport.
The pilot added that he "should have made a positive determination of fuel on board prior to takeoff."
The airplane sustained substantial damage to the right wing and fuselage.
Postaccident examination by the Federal Aviation Administration inspector revealed no distinctive fuel odor at the accident site, and only a cup of fuel was recovered from both tanks.
Probable cause
The pilot’s inadequate preflight inspection of the fuel, which resulted in fuel exhaustion and a subsequent total loss of engine power.
Verbatim NTSB analysis and probable cause from the NTSB dataset
Sources
NTSB record GAA18CA343
- Event ID
- 20180601X80116
- Case number
- GAA18CA343
- 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: 7c1fe3409e1a351e04ef68b004f49626184a046f5f9112b4ebb095675f57f49c; retrieved 2026-09-16T07:21:28.661Z.