SEA03LA105 · Cessna T337G
Cessna T337G · Accident: loss of control in flight during initial climb
From Lewistown, MT to Billings Logan International Airport (BIL)
Event
- NTSB case
- SEA03LA105
- 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 T337G
- Aircraft type
- Cessna 337
- 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
- N4TD
- Operator
- Unknown
- Onboard fatalities
- Unknown
- Route
- From Lewistown, MTTo Billings Logan International Airport (BIL), Billings, MT
- 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
- Initial climb
- 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
- Also codedOther events the NTSB coded in the sequence, such as a wire strike after a loss of power. Flight Findings uses them for its kinds of event. Glossary
- Stall
- 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 › Aircraft control, not maintained
- Pilot in command › Preflight planning/preparation, inadequate
Approximate · Coordinates from the NTSB case API, which marks them as estimated or does not say; no uncertainty radius is established.
NTSB narrative
The pilot reported that when he landed on the airstrip, he had trimmed the aircraft for a short field landing. During the takeoff, he reported that he did not retrim the aircraft and during the takeoff ground run, the control yoke came back into his lap. The aircraft lifted off briefly, then stalled with the left wing down. The pilot aborted the takeoff and reduced power. The aircraft traveled off the north side of the runway and crossed a rough wheat field. The aircraft came to rest over an embankment along side a dirt road.
Probable cause
Inadequate preflight planning/preparation prior to takeoff, and the pilot's failure to maintain aircraft control during the takeoff. An inadvertent stall and rough terrain were factors.
Verbatim NTSB analysis and probable cause from the NTSB dataset
Sources
NTSB record SEA03LA105
- Event ID
- 20030804X01251
- Case number
- SEA03LA105
- 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, coordinates. 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: ae2d344b4226578095e5d43e0ee8a2abe8e9f8c8302c320e06a58e3f19b772cd; retrieved 2026-09-22T09:08:55.739Z.