SEA97LA199 · Comeaux KITFOX 1
Comeaux KITFOX 1 · Accident: loss of control in flight during initial climb
From S07 to an unrecorded destination
Event
- NTSB case
- SEA97LA199
- 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
Comeaux KITFOX 1
- Aircraft type
- Comeaux KITFOX 1
- 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
- N594KF
- Operator
- Scott H. Oakley · private individual
- Onboard fatalities
- Unknown
- Route
- From S07To 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 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
- Initial climb
- 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
- 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 › Directional control, not maintained
Approximate · Coordinates as recorded by the NTSB; no uncertainty radius is established.
NTSB narrative
The aircraft was occupied by a recently certificated private pilot (who owned the aircraft) in the left seat and a commercial pilot in the right seat. The private pilot/owner originally identified himself as the pilot flying at the time of the accident, stating takeoff was normal until the aircraft reached an altitude of 50 feet above ground level (AGL), where the airplane began an uncommanded right roll and subsequently cartwheeled. He subsequently changed his account, stating he asked the right-seat occupant if she wanted to do the takeoff and that she replied she did. He stated that during the takeoff, he applied throttle and she kept the airplane straight, and that at an altitude of 50 to 60 feet AGL, the airplane yawed to the right. He stated he assumed that as an experienced pilot, she would correct the yaw, but this did not occur. The airplane reached a nose angle of 90 degrees to the runway and subsequently crashed. The right-seat occupant denied flying the aircraft at the time of the accident, stating that she could not reach the rudder pedals. The aircraft's flight controls were found to be intact and functional in a post-accident examination.
Probable cause
The private pilot-in-command's failure to ensure that directional control was maintained. A related factor was the private pilot's lack of total flight experience.
Verbatim NTSB analysis and probable cause from the NTSB dataset
Sources
NTSB record SEA97LA199
- Event ID
- 20001208X08756
- Case number
- SEA97LA199
- 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: 4c0d695b3fd324650f57f523e2d22d5520be6d18abffaf2f3c2e22b09efe17ce; retrieved 2026-09-22T18:44:28.362Z.