CEN21FA026 · Grumman AA5 A
Grumman AA5 A · Accident: loss of control in flight while maneuvering
From 9X1 · Porter, TX to Liberty, TX
Event
- NTSB case
- CEN21FA026
- 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
- Instrument Meteorological Cond
Grumman AA5 A
- Aircraft type
- Grumman AA5
- 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
- N26136
- Operator
- Unknown
- Onboard fatalities
- Unknown
- Route
- From 9X1 · Porter, TXTo Liberty, TX
- Aircraft age
- About 43 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
- Maneuvering
- 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
- Environmental issues › Conditions/weather/phenomena
- Personnel issues › Psychological
- 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 and passenger took off on a cross-country flight. Air Traffic Control (ATC) and Automatic Dependent Surveillance-Broadcast (ADS-B) data showed that the pilot made a normal takeoff and climb to the south, and subsequent turn to the east. As the airplane climbed through 1,600 ft, the pilot established communications with the ATC controller and requested an IFR clearance to his destination airport. The ATC controller asked if they could maintain their own terrain and obstruction clearance until leaving 1,700 ft, to which the pilot responded in the affirmative. The ATC controller then cleared the pilot to his destination via radar vectors and instructed him to climb to 3,000 ft and fly a heading of 270°.
The airplane was in a left turn to a northeast heading when the ATC controller instructed the pilot to stop the turn and climb to 3,000 ft. The airplane climbed through 2,200 ft when the ATC controller advised the pilot of antennas in front of them and again instructed him to climb to 3,000 ft. However, the airplane climbed to 2,400 ft, continued to turn left, and then descended rapidly. The controller’s Low Altitude Aural and Visual Alert activated as the airplane descended through 1,900 ft. The ATC controller informed the pilot of the alert, to check his altitude, and that he appeared to be in a spiraling left hand turn. He then instructed the pilot to level his wings and stop his descent. Simultaneous loss of radar and radio communications occurred with the airplane headed east. The ATC controller advised the pilot that radar contact was lost. There were no radio distress calls recorded.
A postaccident examination of the airplane, engine, and related systems revealed no mechanical anomalies that would have precluded normal operation. It is likely the pilot became disoriented when he entered instrument meteorological conditions (IMC) and subsequently failed to maintain control of the airplane.
Probable cause
The pilot’s failure to maintain control of the airplane due to spatial disorientation.
Verbatim NTSB analysis and probable cause from the NTSB dataset
Sources
NTSB record CEN21FA026
- Event ID
- 20201025102185
- Case number
- CEN21FA026
- 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, cause areas. 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: 4860d655e085293918519eeef6e2840a92de0d413894438948788bbe3180112c; retrieved 2026-09-15T07:21:30.418Z.