SEA95LA135 · Cessna 172L
Cessna 172L · Accident: in flight collision with terrain/water during initial climb
From an unrecorded airport to Boise Air Terminal/Gowen Field (BOI)
Event
- NTSB case
- SEA95LA135
- 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
Cessna 172L
- Aircraft type
- Cessna 172
- 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
- N4319Q
- Operator
- Unknown
- Onboard fatalities
- Unknown
- Route
- From not recordedTo Boise Air Terminal/Gowen Field (BOI), Boise, ID
- Aircraft age
- Not recorded
- 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
- First occurrenceThe 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
- In flight collision with terrain/water
- 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
- Pilot in command › Airspeed, not attained
- Pilot in command › All available runway, not used
- Pilot in command › Flaps, improper use of
Approximate · Coordinates as recorded by the NTSB; no uncertainty radius is established.
NTSB narrative
THE PILOT USED FLAPS FOR THE TAKEOFF, CONTRARY TO THE AIRPLANE OWNER'S MANUAL RECOMMENDATIONS ABOUT USE OF FLAPS FOR TAKEOFF AT HIGH ALTITUDE. THE AIRPORT IS LOCATED AT AN ELEVATION OF 6,403 FEET ABOVE SEA LEVEL. WITNESSES OBSERVED THE PILOT BEGINNING HIS TAKEOFF ROLL FROM MIDFIELD AT THE AIRPORT. THE WITNESSES STATED THAT THE AIRPLANE BECAME AIRBORNE AND REMAINED IN CLOSE PROXIMITY TO THE GROUND. ABOUT 900 FEET BEYOND THE END OF THE RUNWAY, THE LEFT WING OF THE AIRPLANE STRUCK THE GROUND AND THE AIRPLANE CARTWHEELED. THE PILOT REPORTED NO MECHANICAL MALFUNCTIONS, AND HE STATED THAT THE AIRPLANE WAS AFFECTED BY WINDSHEAR AND DOWNDRAFTS.
Probable cause
THE PILOT'S FAILURE TO USE ALL AVAILABLE RUNWAY, HIS IMPROPER USE OF FLAPS, AND HIS FAILURE TO MAINTAIN AIRSPEED. A FACTOR CONTRIBUTING TO THE ACCIDENT IS HIGH DENSITY ALTITUDE.
Verbatim NTSB analysis and probable cause from the NTSB dataset
Sources
NTSB record SEA95LA135
- Event ID
- 20001207X04082
- Case number
- SEA95LA135
- Dataset
- historical-pre2008
- Source SHA-256
- 89e2df6d848e7ab3b42e7d7c7a03ff403303057a26ca04c95b3ea67201c3ce74
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: 123bd8456d0b0347c08bbeb68e200a4479981ff2b560585c6ffe81e08e8e895d; retrieved 2026-09-22T23:42:27.388Z.