SEA99FA146 · Republic RC-3
Republic RC-3 · Accident: loss of control in flight on approach
From William R Fairchild International Airport (CLM) to Corvallis Municipal Airport (CVO)
Event
- NTSB case
- SEA99FA146
- 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
- Visual Meteorological Cond
Republic RC-3
- Aircraft type
- Republic RC-3
- 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
- N6070K
- Operator
- Unknown
- Onboard fatalities
- Unknown
- Route
- From William R Fairchild International Airport (CLM), Port Angeles, WATo Corvallis Municipal Airport (CVO), Corvallis, OR
- 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
- 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
No findings designated as a cause are recorded in the NTSB data yet.
Approximate · Coordinates as recorded by the NTSB; no uncertainty radius is established.
NTSB narrative
The 1,100 hour pilot-in-command (PIC), who had just purchased the amphibious RC-3, had no amphibious/floatplane experience. Accompanied by the 4,664 hour flight instructor serving as a safety pilot, the two pilots departed Port Angeles, Washington, for Corvallis, Oregon, with the intention of making practice landings en route. Witnesses observed the aircraft in a smooth, descending, right turn lining up to the north over the south end of Discovery Bay and headed towards 50 foot power lines which crossed the bay on an east/west line. Just short of the power lines, the aircraft was observed to execute a sharp 90 degree left turn, descend out of control to the water, bounce into the air and then re-enter the water in a steep, nose down attitude. Post-crash examination of the aircraft revealed no evidence of airframe or powerplant malfunction. Forward fuselage crush angles confirmed a nose low, left wing low attitude, characteristic of a stall condition upon water impact. A pilot who landed a floatplane near the accident site immediately after the crash reported gusty windy conditions.
Probable cause
The inadequate visual lookout by both the pilot-in-command and second pilot, and the pilot-in-command's failure to maintain sufficient flying speed to prevent a stall condition. Contributing factors were the transmission lines, gusty wind conditions, and the pilot-in-command's lack of total experience in type of aircraft.
Verbatim NTSB analysis and probable cause from the NTSB dataset
Sources
NTSB record SEA99FA146
- Event ID
- 20001212X19642
- Case number
- SEA99FA146
- 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: 1ec5910596b5831ba4ea4fd1dbcbe9398e6262d34c89c5f38d4dff036b67bc1e; retrieved 2026-09-20T21:51:44.380Z.