SEA87LA085 · Cessna 172N
Cessna 172N · Accident: airframe, component or system failure en route
From H10 · Hillsboro, OR to Boise Air Terminal/Gowen Field (BOI)
Event
- NTSB case
- SEA87LA085
- 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
Cessna 172N
- 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
- N1935F
- Operator
- Bob Tuning
- Onboard fatalities
- Unknown
- Route
- From H10 · Hillsboro, ORTo Boise Air Terminal/Gowen Field (BOI), Boise, ID
- 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 · 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
- Airframe, component or system failure
- 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
- Electrical system, alternator › Not switched
- Electrical system, battery › Failure, total
- Pilot in command › Precautionary landing, performed
Approximate · Coordinates as recorded by the NTSB; no uncertainty radius is established.
NTSB narrative
DURING A CROSS COUNTRY FLT THE PLT NOTICED THAT HE WAS GRADUALLY LOSING HIS COMMUNICATIONS RADIO AND NAVIGATIONAL INSTRUMENTS. SHORTLY AFTERWARDS THE PLT NOTICED THAT THE FUEL GAUGES WERE QUICKLY APPROACHING EMPTY. SINCE HOSTILE TERRAIN WAS AHEAD THE PLT ELECTED TO LAND ONTO A ROAD. JUST PRIOR TO TOUCHDOWN THE PLT NOTICED A CAR IN HIS LANDING PATH. A TURN WAS MADE DURING THE GO-AROUND AND THE ACFT WAS UNABLE TO OUTCLIMB RISING TERRAIN. THE PLT LANDED THE ACFT ONTO RISING TERRAIN WHERE THE NOSE WHEEL DUG IN AND BROKE OFF WITH THE ACFT NOSING OVER INVERTED. NO ABNORMALITIES OTHER THAN A DEAD BATTERY WAS FOUND. FUEL STAINS WERE EVIDENT ON THE GROUND AND 8+ GALLONS OF FUEL REMAINED IN THE FUEL TANKS.
Verbatim NTSB analysis from the NTSB dataset
Sources
NTSB record SEA87LA085
- Event ID
- 20001213X30831
- Case number
- SEA87LA085
- 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 1987-04-25.
- API snapshot SHA-256: e7cf9a0d8cb9c59e93b7dacee8da947b6f430fe97aae06b2d199e2e3f503104e; retrieved 2026-09-22T00:54:12.053Z.