SEA03CA112 · Cessna 177
Cessna 177 · Accident: loss of control in flight during takeoff
From Kelly Ranch Heliport (WA71) to Kelly Ranch Heliport (WA71)
Event
- NTSB case
- SEA03CA112
- 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
- Unknown
- 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 177
- Aircraft type
- Cessna 177
- 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
- N2279Y
- Operator
- Unknown
- Onboard fatalities
- Unknown
- Route
- From Kelly Ranch Heliport (WA71), Woodland, WATo Kelly Ranch Heliport (WA71), Woodland, WA
- 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
- Takeoff
- 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 control in flight
- 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
- Pilot in command › Airspeed, not obtained/maintained
- Pilot in command › Directional control, not maintained
- Pilot in command › Lift-off, premature
Approximate · Coordinates from the NTSB case API, which marks them as estimated or does not say; no uncertainty radius is established.
NTSB narrative
The private pilot reported that he was attempting a short field takeoff from runway 14. He reported that the airplane's acceleration for takeoff was normal, however, shortly after liftoff the airplane settled back on to the runway. The pilot continued the takeoff and the airplane became airborne a second time. The pilot estimated that the airplane's speed was approximately 50 mph when the airplane became airborne the second time. Shortly after becoming airborne, the airplane yawed to the left and began to settle back to the ground. The pilot reported that the airplane settled approximately 100 feet to the left of the runway. When the airplane contacted terrain a second time, the right main landing gear and nose gear collapsed.
Probable cause
The pilot's premature liftoff and his failure to maintain/obtain airspeed and directional control during takeoff.
Verbatim NTSB analysis and probable cause from the NTSB dataset
Sources
NTSB record SEA03CA112
- Event ID
- 20030731X01243
- Case number
- SEA03CA112
- 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, coordinates. Values present in the bulk record are kept.
- The date is the local date; the NTSB stores the UTC date 2003-06-20.
- API snapshot SHA-256: d50e513f53043fbdaa071130a98e878cc0681aa22a4269b1f4f3dab2d378a3f4; retrieved 2026-09-22T09:07:18.774Z.