SEA03CA155 · Cessna 170B
Cessna 170B · Accident: overrun during takeoff
From Schafer USFS Airport (8U2) to Helena Regional Airport (HLN)
Event
- NTSB case
- SEA03CA155
- 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 170B
- Aircraft type
- Cessna 170
- 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
- N1979C
- Operator
- Craig Hanson
- Onboard fatalities
- Unknown
- Route
- From Schafer USFS Airport (8U2), SCHAFER, MTTo Helena Regional Airport (HLN), Helena, 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
- Takeoff · rejected 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
- Overrun
- 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 › Remedial action, delayed
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 he aborted the takeoff roll because he determined that the aircraft was not generating sufficient lift to execute a safe takeoff and clear obstacles located at the end of the runway. He reported that he applied heavy braking, however, the airplane skidded off the departure end of the runway, through a fence, and down an embankment. The pilot reported that the turf runway was damp at the time of the accident. He also reported that the he aborted the takeoff approximately halfway down the runway. The Schafer Airport is located at an elevation of 4,933 feet above mean sea level, and has a single turf runway (07/25), which is 3,200 feet long and 60 feet wide.
Probable cause
The pilot's delayed remedial action during the takeoff roll. Factors include wet terrain, a fence and an embankment located at the end of the runway.
Verbatim NTSB analysis and probable cause from the NTSB dataset
Sources
NTSB record SEA03CA155
- Event ID
- 20030929X01611
- Case number
- SEA03CA155
- 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: 1ae73009167d87cd823837f2441dbd59fc1fd583b3ef0b9b9aa9be3b65f00983; retrieved 2026-09-21T19:24:26.565Z.