CHI88LA228 · Lake LA-4-200
Lake LA-4-200 · Accident: in flight collision with terrain/water during landing
Event
- NTSB case
- CHI88LA228
- 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
Lake LA-4-200
- Aircraft type
- Lake LA-4
- 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
- N8012A
- 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
- Landing · flare/touchdown
- 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
- In flight collision with terrain/water
- 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 › Unsuitable terrain or takeoff/landing/taxi area, selected
Approximate · Coordinates as recorded by the NTSB; no uncertainty radius is established.
NTSB narrative
THE PLT HAD JUST COMPLETED A COURSE AT THE LAKE ACFT FACTORY SCHOOL, BUT HAD NOT YET OBTAINED A SEAPLANE RATING. AFTER HE FLEW HOME, HE LANDED ON LOCAL LAKES. HE REPORTED THAT DRG A LANDING ON CALM WATER, HE EXPECTED TO HEAR A 'SLUSH SOUND' AS THE HULL TOUCHED THE WATER, BUT INSTEAD, THERE WAS A 'LOUD NOISE AS THE ACFT DECELERATED RAPIDLY & WATER CAME THRU THE FLOOR. SUBSEQUENTLY, THE AMPHIBIOUS ACFT NOSED OVER & CAME TO REST WITH THE BOTTOM MISSING FROM THE COCKPIT TO THE TAIL SECTION. THE PLT INDCD THAT DRG A LANDING IN SHALLOW WATER ' . . . THE AIRCRAFT IMBEDDED ITSELF ON THE BOTTOM OF THE LAKE IN MUD.'
Verbatim NTSB analysis from the NTSB dataset
Sources
NTSB record CHI88LA228
- Event ID
- 20001213X26527
- Case number
- CHI88LA228
- 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: local date, investigation status. Values present in the bulk record are kept.
- The date is the local date; the NTSB stores the UTC date 1988-09-01.
- API snapshot SHA-256: 7f98e9f4f37b0ef253854c7c48639f4aea50bbdfc0e1f4e0640ca3a57be431d6; retrieved 2026-09-22T00:25:10.399Z.