SEA98FA170 · Cessna 172L
Cessna 172L · Accident: on ground/water collision with terrain/water during landing
From Mount Vernon, WA to STUART ISLAND, WA
Event
- NTSB case
- SEA98FA170
- 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
- 1 · 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
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
- N1069M
- Operator
- Unknown
- Onboard fatalities
- Unknown
- Route
- From Mount Vernon, WATo STUART ISLAND, 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
- Landing
- 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 terrain/water
- 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
Approximate · Coordinates as recorded by the NTSB; no uncertainty radius is established.
NTSB narrative
The pilot reported that he and his passenger met earlier in the morning at the pilot's residence on a lake. The purpose of the flight was to take aerial photos of property on an island. He said that while en route, the flight encountered a lowering overcast layer. He diverted and landed at a marina. He then step-taxied the aircraft through a pass in the direction of the islands. The weather was still poor when they exited the pass and the pilot beached the aircraft in a cove. The flight remained for a period of time before departing toward the islands. The pilot does not recall all of the events leading up to the accident. A boater who came upon the wreckage shortly after the accident, reported that the weather was a low overcast layer at 400 to 500 feet and visibility was one-quarter to one-half mile. The float-equipped aircraft was positioned on the beach, out of the water, with the nose positioned up against the rock outcropping. Impact damage from the terrain was noted to the left wing tip, right wing leading edge, both front end floats were crushed upward and rearward, the lower left side of the engine cowling was crushed rearward, the propeller and spinner were damaged, and the tail cone was broken just aft of the baggage compartment The boater was asked if the pilot said anything about the accident. The boater stated that the pilot said that 'we were going too fast.' During the investigation, there was no evidence found to indicate a mechanical failure or malfunction.
Probable cause
Terrain clearance was not maintained. A low ceiling and the pilot's inadequate in-flight planning/decision were factors.
Verbatim NTSB analysis and probable cause from the NTSB dataset
Sources
NTSB record SEA98FA170
- Event ID
- 20001211X10953
- Case number
- SEA98FA170
- 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: 889cda0bb0d81f42d8b6bc0f3c0a97ea0aa7d2ae74f6e9e1cfd594ebf5858452; retrieved 2026-09-20T22:27:07.962Z.