ERA21LA030 · Grumman AA5
Baxley Aviation Grumman AA5 · Accident: loss of engine power (partial) during initial climb
Event
- NTSB case
- ERA21LA030
- 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
- 0
- 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
Grumman AA5
- 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
- N920JL
- Operator
- Baxley Aviation
- Onboard fatalities
- Unknown
- Route
- From not recordedTo not recorded
- Aircraft age
- About 48 years (built 1972)
- 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
- Loss of engine power (partial)
- 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 power plant
Approximate · Coordinates as recorded by the NTSB; no uncertainty radius is established.
NTSB narrative
The pilot reported that before takeoff for the personal flight, he performed an engine run-up, which included a check of the magnetos, carburetor heat, fuel pressure, oil pressure, and oil temperature. After takeoff, at an altitude of about 500 ft mean sea level (msl), he checked the instruments, which “looked good,” and the airplane was climbing about 500 ft per minute. About 600 ft msl, the airplane “didn’t feel right,” and he noticed a “significant loss of power.” He then lowered the nose to gain speed; however, the airplane did not gain speed and started to descend. He selected a location for an off-airport landing. The airplane landed in a wooded area of 4- to 8-ft-tall pine trees and sustained substantial damage to both wings.
The weather conditions at the time of the accident were conducive to the accumulation of carburetor ice at glide power settings. However, the pilot applied the carburetor heat during the engine run-up just before takeoff, which should have either melted any minor ice that may have accumulated on the ground or resulted in a rough running engine, which the pilot did not report. The application of carburetor heat during the run-up combined with the high power setting during takeoff and initial climb reduced the likelihood of carburetor ice.
The most significant finding of a postaccident examination of the engine included that there was a hole in the left exhaust riser, and an accumulation of soot in the carburetor heat muff and tubing, airbox, and carburetor throat. This was indicative of exhaust gases leaking into the carburetor heat and engine induction systems. However, the pilot did note any anomalies during the engine runup and test of carburetor heat function and did not report activating the carburetor heat during the accident takeoff or subsequent forced landing. Given this information, it could not be definitively determined what role the exhaust leak played in the loss of engine power during the accident flight.
Based on available evidence, the reason for the partial loss of engine power could not be determined.
Probable cause
A partial loss of engine power for undetermined reasons.
Verbatim NTSB analysis and probable cause from the NTSB dataset
Sources
NTSB record ERA21LA030
- Event ID
- 20201026102187
- Case number
- ERA21LA030
- 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, 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: 4adcc827e488c8c65550f835cb513e90de1f864cc1640e7ad5676072389cd26d; retrieved 2026-09-16T13:17:00.856Z.