SEA97LA082 · Cessna 172L
Cessna 172L · Accident: loss of control in flight on approach
From Astoria Regional Airport (AST) to Nehalem Bay State Airport (3S7)
Event
- NTSB case
- SEA97LA082
- 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
- CGICR
- Operator
- Unknown
- Onboard fatalities
- Unknown
- Route
- From Astoria Regional Airport (AST), Astoria, ORTo Nehalem Bay State Airport (3S7)
- 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
- Approach · VFR go-around
- 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
- Also codedOther events the NTSB coded in the sequence, such as a wire strike after a loss of power. Flight Findings uses them for its kinds of event. Glossary
- Tree(s)
- 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 › Compensation for wind conditions, inadequate
- Pilot in command › Directional control, not maintained
Approximate · Coordinates as recorded by the NTSB; no uncertainty radius is established.
NTSB narrative
The Canadian private pilot stated that he was attempting to land on runway 33 at the Nehalem Bay Airport along the Oregon coast when the airplane encountered gusty winds and turbulence. The pilot stated that he added full power and attempted to go around. During the go-around attempt, he lost directional control of the airplane, and the airplane impacted trees along the west side of the runway. The pilot, passenger, and a ground eyewitness did not report any perceived preimpact mechanical malfunctions with the airplane. The pilot further stated that he overflew the airport prior to the landing attempt and ascertained the wind conditions. He stated that he did not perceive any gusty crosswinds or turbulence until the final approach. The wind conditions at a coastal airport located about 25 miles north of the accident site reported 14 knot winds out of 270 degrees magnetic.
Probable cause
The pilot's failure to adequately compensate for wind conditions, and his failure to maintain directional control of the airplane during the go-around attempt. Factors contributing to the accident are gusty crosswinds.
Verbatim NTSB analysis and probable cause from the NTSB dataset
Sources
NTSB record SEA97LA082
- Event ID
- 20001208X07822
- Case number
- SEA97LA082
- 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 1997-04-03.
- API snapshot SHA-256: be311bc6912fd441ac2cda337e4d2ac8f31f4e9ba754f2e164cfec292100a036; retrieved 2026-09-21T12:11:42.782Z.