ATL84FIG01 · Lake LA-4-200
Lake LA-4-200 · Accident: in flight collision with terrain/water during landing
From Easton Airport / Newnam Field (ESN) to an unrecorded destination
Narrative check · The NTSB narrative appears to contradict this record's location. Values are shown as recorded, not corrected; compare with the narrative.
Event
- NTSB case
- ATL84FIG01
- 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
- Unknown
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
- N5022L
- Operator
- Unknown
- Onboard fatalities
- Unknown
- Route
- From Easton Airport / Newnam Field (ESN), Easton, MDTo 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 › Altitude, misjudged
- Pilot in command › Flare, delayed
Approximate · Coordinates as recorded by the NTSB; no uncertainty radius is established.
NTSB narrative
DURING THE AFTERNOON, THE PLT FLEW TO THE MILES RIVER IN MARYLAND WHERE HE MADE A WATER LANDING TO PICK UP A PASSENGER. WHEN HE LANDED, THE WATER SURFACE HAD RIPPLES WHICH HAD BEEN PRODUCED BY A LIGHT BREEZE. AT THAT TIME, THE PLT HAD NO TROUBLE SEEING THE SURFACE OF THE WATER. THE PLT THEN TOOK OFF WITH THE PASSENGER ON BOARD. LATER, WHEN THEY RETURNED TO LAND, THE WATER WAS GLASSY. THE PLT STATED THAT DURING THE LANDING, HE THOUGHT HIS APPROACH WAS PERFECT. HE STATED HE THOUGHT THAT HE WAS APRX 5 TO 6 FT ABOVE THE WATER & WAS JUST BEGINING TO FLARE WHEN THE ANPHIBIAN ACFT CRASHED. HE WAS THROWN FROM THE ACFT & REMEMBERED SWIMMING BACK. APRX 4 MIN AFTER THE ACCIDENT, BOTH OCCUPANTS WERE PULLED FROM THE WATER, BUT THE PASSENGER, WHO HAD WENT THRU THE WINDSHIELD, DIED LATER. NO SHOULDER HARNESS WAS INSTALLED. THE WATER VISIBILITY AT THE SITE WAS CLEAR. WHEN THE INVESTIGATOR LANDED ON GLASSY WATER THERE ON THE NEXT DAY, THERE WAS NO VISIBLE SURFACE, ALL HE COULD SEE WAS WHAT APPEARED TO BE THE RIVER BOTTOM.
Verbatim NTSB analysis from the NTSB dataset
Sources
NTSB record ATL84FIG01
- Event ID
- 20001214X44989
- Case number
- ATL84FIG01
- 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: 14a76ea16ec55c6b6c4ce229d10e267283a9d5d879fea7381536a9d566a6ab3f; retrieved 2026-09-21T05:55:15.095Z.