SEA04LA002 · Cessna 172S
Galvin Flying Service Cessna 172S · Accident: loss of control on ground/water during landing
From King County International Airport - Boeing Field (BFI) to an unrecorded destination
Event
- NTSB case
- SEA04LA002
- 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 172S
- 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
- N350ME
- Operator
- Galvin Flying Service
- Onboard fatalities
- Unknown
- Route
- From King County International Airport - Boeing Field (BFI), Seattle, WATo 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
- 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 on ground/water
- 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 › Flare, improper
Approximate · Coordinates from the NTSB case API, which marks them as estimated or does not say; no uncertainty radius is established.
NTSB narrative
The student pilot reported that when he turned to final approach, he realized that he was too high. The pilot pitched the nose down, but did not reduce power. Airspeed increased, and the pilot decided to slip the aircraft to slow down. The aircraft eventually got down to the VASI glide slope, but had an excessive airspeed for the landing. The aircraft touched down in a flat attitude and ballooned. The pilot pitched the nose down and the aircraft touched down on the nose gear and bounced. The pilot pitched the nose down and again the aircraft touched down on the nose gear and bounced. The aircraft eventually settled to the runway and the pilot applied braking action and pulled off the runway to conclude the flight. Post accident inspection of the aircraft revealed that the firewall had been substantially damaged.
Probable cause
Improper flare during the landing. Excessive airspeed and improper remedial action were factors.
Verbatim NTSB analysis and probable cause from the NTSB dataset
Sources
NTSB record SEA04LA002
- Event ID
- 20031017X01768
- Case number
- SEA04LA002
- 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: 055ac0381c71739cf19e5bf4742d845e2ae3ae4049dbe9dd5a4b2087713c583f; retrieved 2026-09-22T08:25:07.829Z.