WPR26LA182 · American AA-5
American AA-5 · Accident: collision during takeoff/landing
Event
- NTSB case
- WPR26LA182
- 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
- Event fatalities
- Unknown
- 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-5
- Aircraft type
- 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
- N5832L
- Operator
- Unknown
- Onboard fatalities
- Unknown
- Route
- From not recordedTo not recorded
- Aircraft age
- About 54 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
- Landing · flare/touchdown
- 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
- Collision during takeoff/landing
- 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
- Environmental issues › Conditions/weather/phenomena
- Environmental issues › Operating environment
- 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 reported that he had planned the flight to include three take-offs and landings after dark, to renew his night currency after several years of not flying at night. He entered the traffic pattern in near-dark conditions and attempted several times to activate the pilot controlled runway lights, but was unable to do so, and elected to land without the runway lights illuminated. He reported that he lost visual contact with the runway and started searching for the runway while judging his position based on the airport buildings. At about 20-30 ft above the surface, he observed the ground just in front of the airplane and realized the airplane was not aligned with the runway. He added power to perform a go-around, but the airplane struck an airport perimeter fence located to the left of the runway. The airplane spun around to the right before coming to rest in the dirt/grass area next to the runway. During the accident sequence the airplane sustained substantial damage to the wings and fuselage.
According to the pilot, he did not review the FAA notice to airmen (NOTAM) advising that the airport was closed daily from sunset to sunrise, which was in effect at the time of the accident.
The pilot reported that there were no pre-accident mechanical malfunctions or failures with the airplane that would have precluded normal operation.
Probable cause
The pilot’s decision to land at night on a runway without illuminated runway lights. Contributing to the accident was the pilot’s failure to review NOTAMs for a nightly airport closure.
Verbatim NTSB analysis and probable cause from the NTSB dataset
Sources
NTSB record WPR26LA182
- Event ID
- 20260512202973
- Case number
- WPR26LA182
- 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, cause areas. Values present in the bulk record are kept.
- The date is the local date; the NTSB stores the UTC date 2026-05-12.
- API snapshot SHA-256: 05ea750a89c8e30a266497614905e273aa9af00199a8c564c2032811b7ac06e9; retrieved 2026-09-16T21:26:49.047Z.