SEA97FA215 · Cessna 172M
Cessna 172M · Accident: undershoot on approach
From Friday Harbor Airport (FHR) to Bremerton National Airport (PWT)
Event
- NTSB case
- SEA97FA215
- 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
- 3 · 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 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
- N6756H
- Operator
- Unknown
- Onboard fatalities
- Unknown
- Route
- From Friday Harbor Airport (FHR), Friday Harbor, WATo Bremerton National Airport (PWT), WA
- 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 pattern final
- 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
- Undershoot
- 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 › Clearance, not maintained
- Pilot in command › Distance/altitude, misjudged
Approximate · Coordinates as recorded by the NTSB; no uncertainty radius is established.
NTSB narrative
While visiting friends, the private pilot arrived at an unfamiliar airport and requested the authorization to rent airplanes from an operator. The pilot intended on flying his friends on a cross country night flight, but he did not inform the flight instructor who flew with him for the authorization. The instructor reviewed the pilot's logbook, but did not notice that it had been about 2 years since the pilot had logged any of his 3 hours of total night flying time. The operator's dispatcher subsequently allowed the pilot to rent the airplane for the flight, despite published night flying requirements which the pilot did not meet. During the return flight back to the airport, the pilot told controllers the he had difficulty locating the airport. During final approach, the airplane impacted trees and came to rest in a 3-foot-deep pond, about 1/2-mile short of the runway. The visual approach slope indicator (VASI) lighting for the runway was out of service for routine maintenance, and a Notice To Airmen (NOTAM) had been issued. Examination of the wreckage did not reveal any evidence of preimpact mechanical malfunction. The front seat occupants, who were not wearing shoulder harnesses, drowned.
Probable cause
The pilot's misjudgment of distance and altitude from the runway, and his subsequent failure to maintain clearance from the terrain. Factors contributing to the accident were dark night conditions, the pilot's improper decision to conduct the flight at night, his lack of recent experience in the type of operation (night flying), his lack of familiarity with the geographical area, the inoperative airport visual approach slope indicator, and the improper dispatch of the airplane by the operator.
Verbatim NTSB analysis and probable cause from the NTSB dataset
Sources
NTSB record SEA97FA215
- Event ID
- 20001208X08924
- Case number
- SEA97FA215
- 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 1997-09-24.
- API snapshot SHA-256: 035d5f7cfd031ebe36cd61be6cc52006b617798a39209c09d1cbc006b12b48ad; retrieved 2026-09-20T22:48:32.990Z.