SEA95LA145 · Wheeler KITFOX V
Wheeler KITFOX V · Accident: loss of control in flight en route
From Arlington Municipal Airport (AWO) to an unrecorded destination
Event
- NTSB case
- SEA95LA145
- 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
- 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
Wheeler KITFOX V
- Aircraft type
- Wheeler KITFOX
- 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
- N24KF
- Operator
- Unknown
- Onboard fatalities
- Unknown
- Route
- From Arlington Municipal Airport (AWO), Arlington, WATo not recorded
- 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
- En route · cruise
- 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
- 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
- Pilot in command › Aircraft control, not maintained
Approximate · Estimated position: the centre of Silvana, WA, the place the record names. Not the accident site.
NTSB narrative
THE PILOT WAS TO PERFORM TWO LOW LEVEL FLY-BYS OVER THE RUNWAY TO DEMONSTRATE THE QUIETNESS OF THE ENGINE. AFTER THE AIRPLANE MADE THE SECOND PASS, IT UNEXPECTEDLY DEPARTED THE AREA. WITNESSES OBSERVED THE AIRPLANE FLYING AT A LOW LEVEL, WHEN THE NOSE OF THE AIRPLANE GRADUALLY LOWERED VERTICAL TO THE TERRAIN AND THE AIRPLANE BEGAN A SLOW SPIRAL. THE AIRPLANE CONTINUED IN THIS ATTITUDE UNTIL IMPACT. DURING THE POSTCRASH INSPECTION, NO EVIDENCE WAS FOUND TO INDICATE A MECHANICAL FAILURE OR MALFUNCTION. THE AIRPLANE'S BALLISTIC RECOVERY SYSTEM HAD NOT BEEN DEPLOYED.
Probable cause
THE PILOT'S FAILURE TO MAINTAIN AIRCRAFT CONTROL. THE EMERGENCY BALLISTIC PARACHUTE NOT BEING DEPLOYED WAS A FACTOR IN THE ACCIDENT.
Verbatim NTSB analysis and probable cause from the NTSB dataset
Sources
NTSB record SEA95LA145
- Event ID
- 20001207X04089
- Case number
- SEA95LA145
- 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: e4a2b60acadbee518d4aa0a639ddcf7345a41ea1f656a2617f004d22371691e7; retrieved 2026-09-20T23:42:34.913Z.