SEA94LA021 · Hannah AVID AMPHIBIAN AVID AMPHI
Hannah AVID AMPHIBIAN AVID AMPHI · Accident: loss of engine power on approach
Event
- NTSB case
- SEA94LA021
- 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
Hannah AVID AMPHIBIAN AVID AMPHI
- Aircraft type
- Hannah AVID AMPHIBIAN
- 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
- N6664K
- Operator
- Unknown
- Onboard fatalities
- Unknown
- Route
- From not recordedTo 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
- Approach · VFR pattern downwind
- 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 engine power
- 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
- Fuel contamination
- 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 › Airspeed, not maintained
- Pilot in command › In-flight planning/decision, poor
Approximate · Coordinates as recorded by the NTSB; no uncertainty radius is established.
NTSB narrative
DURING THE FIRST FLIGHT OF THE AMATEUR-BUILT AIRCRAFT, THE ENGINE LOST POWER WHILE THE PILOT WAS AT ABOUT 500 FEET ABOVE GROUND LEVEL ON DOWNWIND. HE ATTEMPTED TO GLIDE BACK TO THE AIRPORT INSTEAD OF LANDING IN AVAILABLE OPEN AREAS NEARER TO THE DOWNWIND. IN ATTEMPTING TO GET BACK TO THE RUNWAY, THE PILOT TRIED TO STRETCH HIS GLIDE TOO FAR, AND ALLOWED HIS AIRSPEED TO GET LOW. THIS RESULTED IN THE AIRCRAFT STALLING JUST BEFORE TOUCHDOWN AND LANDING HARD NEXT TO THE RUNWAY. A POST-ACCIDENT INSPECTION OF THE ENGINE REVEALED CONTAMINATION IN THE FUEL SYSTEM.
Probable cause
THE PILOT'S POOR INFLIGHT DECISION, AND FAILURE TO MAINTAIN SUFFICIENT AIRSPEED. FACTORS INCLUDE CONTAMINATED FUEL.
Verbatim NTSB analysis and probable cause from the NTSB dataset
Sources
NTSB record SEA94LA021
- Event ID
- 20001211X13670
- Case number
- SEA94LA021
- 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: 27b4fd1fcd9478b556dd3b4ad553285d83f7a7091381403302f246f719854768; retrieved 2026-09-21T14:07:35.243Z.