LAX96LA328 · Cessna 425
Cessna 425 · Accident: loss of control on ground/water during landing
From Seattle Paine Field International Airport (PAE) to Auburn Municipal Airport (AUN)
Event
- NTSB case
- LAX96LA328
- 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 425
- Aircraft type
- Cessna 425
- 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
- N425WB
- Operator
- Unknown
- Onboard fatalities
- Unknown
- Route
- From Seattle Paine Field International Airport (PAE), Everett, WATo Auburn Municipal Airport (AUN)
- 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
- Landing · landing roll
- 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 on ground/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
- Hydraulic system, seal › Failure
- Landing gear, normal brake system › Failure
Approximate · Coordinates as recorded by the NTSB; no uncertainty radius is established.
NTSB narrative
According to the pilot, at the conclusion of a 2.5 hour cross-country flight, he landed without difficulty within the first 1/4 of runway 07, which was 3,100 long by 60 feet wide. He applied full reverse thrust, and then he discontinued its use as the airplane slowed and approached the last 1/3 of the runway. The pilot then depressed the brake peddles. The right peddle 'went to the floor,' and the airplane veered left. About 3/4 of the way down the runway, the pilot feathered the right propeller and applied power to the left engine. Despite these efforts, the airplane continued veering toward the left, and it eventually went into a ditch collapsing the nose gear. During a subsequent examination of the airplane's brake system, the right gear brake pads and disc were found in good (serviceable) condition. However, the O-rings in the brake housing had a distorted shape. When the brake system was pressurized, hydraulic fluid leaked past the O-rings. New O-rings were installed in the right brake assembly, and it was pressurized. No leaks were noted, and the brake system then appeared airworthy. The airplane was maintained on an approved inspection program, and it had been inspected about 110 hours before the accident flight.
Probable cause
failure of the right brake system (master cylinder O-ring seal). Factors relating to the accident were: the narrow runway, and the presence of a ditch adjacent to the runway.
Verbatim NTSB analysis and probable cause from the NTSB dataset
Sources
NTSB record LAX96LA328
- Event ID
- 20001208X06769
- Case number
- LAX96LA328
- 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: local date, investigation status. Values present in the bulk record are kept.
- The date is the local date; the NTSB stores the UTC date 1996-09-05.
- API snapshot SHA-256: 55e333356ce4a45d7e54903940d4106c0bec82743286b31111fb6721ddd69716; retrieved 2026-09-22T21:15:46.785Z.