SEA98LA178 · Cessna 414
skyward aviation Cessna 414 · Accident: airframe, component or system failure during landing
From Billings Logan International Airport (BIL) to an unrecorded destination
Event
- NTSB case
- SEA98LA178
- 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 414
- Aircraft type
- Cessna 414
- 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
- CGLHP
- Operator
- Skyward Aviation
- Onboard fatalities
- Unknown
- Route
- From Billings Logan International Airport (BIL), Billings, MTTo 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
- 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
- Airframe, component or system failure
- 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
- Landing gear, normal brake system › Failure
- Reason for occurrence undetermined
Approximate · Coordinates as recorded by the NTSB; no uncertainty radius is established.
NTSB narrative
The flight crew reported that while taxiing after their first landing, the co-pilot reported to the captain that the left brake did not feel normal. The captain agreed and they taxied the aircraft to a maintenance facility for inspection. The mechanic visually inspected the brake system and did not find anything. The flight crew reported that the brake lines had recently been replaced and the mechanic instructed the flight crew to pump the brakes in case of air in the lines. The flight crew reported that they pumped the brakes prior to takeoff and felt that the pressure was now okay. The flight crew reported that during the second landing ground roll, the left braking action failed. The captain made a decision to apply hard right rudder and right brake to deliberately ground loop the aircraft before it ran off the end of the runway and into a river. The brake system was inspected and the left side brake master cylinder was removed for testing. During the functional test, it was found that the master cylinder assembly met all engineering requirements. The spot putty in place locking the cover to the body was consistent with Cessna production assembly practices which indicated that the cylinder had never been overhauled. The unit was disassembled and no evidence of wear, scratches or pitting were found.
Probable cause
A brake system failure for undetermined reasons. An intentional ground loop was a factor.
Verbatim NTSB analysis and probable cause from the NTSB dataset
Sources
NTSB record SEA98LA178
- Event ID
- 20001211X11169
- Case number
- SEA98LA178
- 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: f2d932f9f1e197e70c592fc60e03023fdd2fb0252a1b6c1541b5c23e1f15a337; retrieved 2026-09-22T16:38:29.078Z.