SEA97LA014 · Cessna 172M
Cessna 172M and Ensey SA-750 (ACRODUSTER) SA-750 (AC · Accident: collision between aircraft (not in flight) during landing
Event
- NTSB case
- SEA97LA014
- 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
Aircraft 1 · Cessna 172M
- 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
- N9579H
- Operator
- Unknown
- Onboard fatalities
- Unknown
- Route
- From Corvallis Municipal Airport (CVO), Corvallis, ORTo S12
- 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
- Collision between aircraft (not 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
- Substantial
Aircraft 2 · Ensey SA-750 (ACRODUSTER) SA-750 (AC
- Aircraft type
- Ensey SA-750
- 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
- N94WE
- Operator
- Unknown
- Onboard fatalities
- Unknown
- Route
- From Corvallis Municipal Airport (CVO), Corvallis, ORTo S12
- 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
- Collision between aircraft (not 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
- Substantial
Cause areas
- Pilot in command › Clearance, not maintained
- Pilot in command › Visual lookout, inadequate
- Pilot of other aircraft › Clearance, not maintained
- Pilot of other aircraft › Visual lookout, inadequate
Approximate · Coordinates as recorded by the NTSB; no uncertainty radius is established.
NTSB narrative
A Cessna 172 and an Ensey SA-750 (Acroduster) biplane had flown to the Albany Airport as part of a three-ship group. The Cessna entered the pattern on a left base approximately the same time as the SA-750 entered the pattern on a 45 degree entry to a left downwind. The Cessna pilot had the SA-750 in sight as the Cessna was entering the pattern, but the SA-750 pilot never saw the Cessna once the two aircraft arrived in the vicinity of the airport. Although the pilots of both aircraft made all standard position calls while in the pattern, the pilot of the SA-750, which was being flown at 80 MPH on final, failed to maintain sufficient clearance between his aircraft and the preceding Cessna, which was being flown about 65 MPH on final. Subsequently, the SA-750 converged on the Cessna from behind. Shortly after the two airplanes touched down on the runway, they collided. According to the SA-750 pilot, the first time he saw the Cessna was about one second before impact on the runway.
Probable cause
failure of the SA-750 pilot to see-and-avoid the Cessna 172, which had landed ahead of him on the same runway. The inherent visual restrictions of the SA-750 (a tandem two-place biplane) was a related factor.
Verbatim NTSB analysis and probable cause from the NTSB dataset
Sources
NTSB record SEA97LA014
- Event ID
- 20001208X06979
- Case number
- SEA97LA014
- 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: 16e95ebc0905123585340ecbc29d80c98c7e6521ee50cb248bdaeda2393184dc; retrieved 2026-09-21T21:34:08.868Z.