SEA99LA161 · Wild Goose A1
Wild Goose A1 · Accident: loss of engine power en route
From Salem-Willamette Valley Airport/McNary Field (SLE) to an unrecorded destination
Event
- NTSB case
- SEA99LA161
- 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
Wild Goose A1
- Aircraft type
- Wild Goose A1
- 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
- N3451
- Operator
- Unknown
- Onboard fatalities
- Unknown
- Route
- From Salem-Willamette Valley Airport/McNary Field (SLE), Salem, ORTo 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
- En route · climb to cruise
- 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
- 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
- Fuel system, line fitting › Loose part/bolt/nut/clamp/etc
Approximate · Coordinates as recorded by the NTSB; no uncertainty radius is established.
NTSB narrative
The pilot reported that during the cruise climb, the engine suddenly experienced a short roughness and partial power loss. The engine then regained full power, followed by a complete power loss. The pilot was unable to restart the engine and a forced landing was initiated to an open field. As the aircraft continued to descend, the pilot realized that he would not make the field and diverted to the river. The pilot had been utilizing the amphibian aircraft as a land plane and had not retracted the landing gear after departure. There was not enough time to hand crank the landing gear up. Therefore, the aircraft landed with the gear extended. During the landing on the water, the aircraft nosed over. Post-crash inspection of the engine found a loose fuel line fitting to the fuel pump.
Probable cause
A loose fuel line fitting resulted in a loss of engine power. An intentional wheels down landing was a factor.
Verbatim NTSB analysis and probable cause from the NTSB dataset
Sources
NTSB record SEA99LA161
- Event ID
- 20001212X19882
- Case number
- SEA99LA161
- 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: 1bc8bdeb30d3ed2d193f9c9bfe4867c07d8ec07b1685b8adfc27acf6c07e81a1; retrieved 2026-09-22T14:10:58.974Z.