SEA96LA138 · Cessna A188B
Cessna A188B · Accident: overrun during takeoff
Event
- NTSB case
- SEA96LA138
- 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 A188B
- Aircraft type
- Cessna 188
- 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
- N731ED
- Operator
- Unknown
- Onboard fatalities
- Unknown
- Route
- From not recordedTo 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 137: Agricultural
- 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
- Takeoff · roll/run
- 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
- Overrun
- 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 › Aborted takeoff, not performed
- Pilot in command › Flaps, improper use of
- Pilot in command › Short field takeoff/procedure, not followed
Approximate · Coordinates as recorded by the NTSB; no uncertainty radius is established.
NTSB narrative
The pilot stated that he loaded his airplane with herbicide and fuel in preparation for a local aerial application flight. He began to take off to the north on a 2,675-foot grass airstrip, after determining that light winds were from the southwest. After traversing about two-thirds of the runway without becoming airborne, the pilot elected to abort the takeoff. He then began another takeoff to the south from the opposite end of the runway. He selected 'full flaps' for the takeoff. After traversing half of the runway, the airplane's tail 'came up,' and the airplane began to bounce up and down along the remaining runway length. The airplane overran the runway and impacted a berm, and its tail section was substantially damaged. The flaps were found in the fully extended (20 degree) position at the accident site. According to the airplane flight manual, the flaps should not be placed beyond the 10-degree position for a short field takeoff. The inspector also stated that the operator did not hold a valid agriculture operating certificate at the time of the accident.
Probable cause
the pilot's failure to follow the proper short field takeoff procedure as specified in the Airplane Flight Manual, his improper use of wing flaps during the takeoff, and his failure to abort the takeoff (while there was sufficient runway remainin). A factor relating to the accident was: the presence of a berm beyond the end of the runway.
Verbatim NTSB analysis and probable cause from the NTSB dataset
Sources
NTSB record SEA96LA138
- Event ID
- 20001208X06126
- Case number
- SEA96LA138
- 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: aefe77368db3dacc0cbc60aeed6ee57319f9a04fe8ca4b5c1d5a1bb6694a3850; retrieved 2026-09-22T22:06:04.158Z.