SEA88FA095 · Cessna 172L
Grays Harbor Air Cessna 172L · Accident: abrupt maneuver on approach
From Bowerman Airport (HQM) to an unrecorded destination
Event
- NTSB case
- SEA88FA095
- 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
- Visual 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
- N7935G
- Operator
- Grays Harbor Air
- Onboard fatalities
- Unknown
- Route
- From Bowerman Airport (HQM), Hoquiam, WATo 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
- Abrupt maneuver
- 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
- Pilot in command › Descent, not corrected
- Pilot in command › Flight controls, improper use of
Approximate · Coordinates as recorded by the NTSB; no uncertainty radius is established.
NTSB narrative
THE STUDENT PILOT DEPARTED ON HIS FIFTH SOLO FLIGHT FROM THE AIRPORT WHERE HE HAD BEEN ACCUSTOMED TO ORIGINATING HIS INSTRUCTIONAL FLIGHTS. AFTER SEVERAL TOUCH AND GO LANDINGS HE PROCEEDED TO A NEARBY AIRPORT AND CONDUCTED AT LEAST ONE MORE TOUCH AND GO. WITNESSES OBSERVED THE TAKEOFF, CLIMB AND ENTRY INTO THE TRAFFIC PATERN. SHORTLY AFTER, A WITNESS SAID THE AIRCRAFT PITCHED NOSE DOWN AND IMPACTED THE BAY IN A NOSE LOW, WINGS LEVEL ATTITUDE. WITNESSES HEARD THE ENGINERUNNING AT IMPACT. NO EVIDENCE OF PRE-IMPACT MECHANICAL MALFUNCTION OR PILOT IMPAIRMENT COULD BE FOUND. THE STUDENT HAD A TOTAL OF ABOUT 19 HRS OF FLIGHT TIME (3 HRS OF SOLO).
Verbatim NTSB analysis from the NTSB dataset
Sources
NTSB record SEA88FA095
- Event ID
- 20001213X25815
- Case number
- SEA88FA095
- 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: 80f8f2d5fabef0958923c68698cf6647ab807d9ebfff6158e9d5e7bab3b4d5e0; retrieved 2026-09-21T03:43:28.561Z.