SEA98FA040 · Freije LANCAIR IV
Freije LANCAIR IV · Accident: loss of control in flight while maneuvering
From Coeur D'Alene Airport - Pappy Boyington Field (COE) to Billings Logan International Airport (BIL)
Event
- NTSB case
- SEA98FA040
- 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
- 2 · 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
- Instrument Meteorological Cond
Freije LANCAIR IV
- Aircraft type
- Freije LANCAIR
- 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
- N109GF
- Operator
- Unknown
- Onboard fatalities
- Unknown
- Route
- From Coeur D'Alene Airport - Pappy Boyington Field (COE), COEUR D' ALENE, IDTo Billings Logan International Airport (BIL), Billings, MT
- 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
- Maneuvering
- 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
- Destroyed
Cause areas
- Pilot in command › Aircraft control, not maintained
Approximate · Coordinates as recorded by the NTSB; no uncertainty radius is established.
NTSB narrative
The pilot of the experimental aircraft, who had been on an IFR departure in instrument meteorological conditions (IMC), began maneuvering around the vicinity of Alpine Lake. After a period of between three to five minutes, the pilot lost control of the aircraft, descended out of the low ceiling, and impacted an unoccupied personal residence. At the time of the accident, it was snowing heavily in areas around Alpine Lake, and the visibility was estimated to be one-half mile or less. After the accident, a review of the pilot's log showed that he had recorded only one and nine-tenths hour of instrument time in the last year, and only one hour in the last six months. His log did not show any hours of actual or simulated instrument time in the model aircraft he was flying at the time of the accident. There was no evidence of any pre-impact engine anomaly or vacuum system malfunction.
Probable cause
The pilot's failure to maintain aircraft control after entering known adverse weather. Related factors were, the pilot's failure to follow the published IFR departure procedures, low ceilings and snow, and the pilot's lack of recent instrument experience.
Verbatim NTSB analysis and probable cause from the NTSB dataset
Sources
NTSB record SEA98FA040
- Event ID
- 20001211X09609
- Case number
- SEA98FA040
- 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: e4bd8fea8d5b0544dfdebfb6b8a9270b3454c35dcf63b22a26619854b1a55654; retrieved 2026-09-20T22:40:18.495Z.