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SEA97LA114 · Cessna T207A

16 May 1997 · MONUMENT VALLEY, UT, United States

Cessna T207A · Accident: on ground/water collision with object during landing

From OV7 · Kayenta, AZ to 71V

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Event

NTSB case
SEA97LA114
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 T207A

Aircraft type
Cessna 207
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
N51SA
Operator
Unknown
Onboard fatalities
Unknown
Route
From OV7 · Kayenta, AZTo 71V
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
On ground/water collision with object
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

  • Object › Animal(s)

Approximate · Coordinates as recorded by the NTSB; no uncertainty radius is established.

NTSB narrative

The aircraft was struck by a galloping horse during landing roll. The pilot reported that the runway was clear during his approach, but that he spotted a herd of horses galloping toward the aircraft from the left after an uneventful touchdown. The available remaining runway length and width prevented effective corrective action by the pilot. Despite the pilot's attempt to veer the aircraft clear of the horses, the lead horse struck the aircraft at a full gallop, substantially damaging the aircraft. The privately-owned open-range airstrip, which lies partly on a Navajo Indian reservation, is not fenced on the portion which lies on tribal land, due to tribal restrictions.

Probable cause

A horse entering the runway after the aircraft touched down. Factors included no fence installed around part of the airstrip, and remedial action not possible.

Verbatim NTSB analysis and probable cause from the NTSB dataset

Sources

NTSB record SEA97LA114
Event ID
20001208X08027
Case number
SEA97LA114
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: e084ea5218e1fdd9fd64a7829ebe221c1712d236dfaeb13c9a08bd2a5224f7db; retrieved 2026-09-22T19:41:47.783Z.