SEA04LA048 · Cessna 172N
Cessna 172N · Accident: in flight collision with object on approach
From Bremerton National Airport (PWT) to an unrecorded destination
Event
- NTSB case
- SEA04LA048
- 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 172N
- 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
- N75844
- Operator
- Unknown
- Onboard fatalities
- Unknown
- Route
- From Bremerton National Airport (PWT), Bremerton, 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
- Approach · IFR initial approach
- 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 object
- 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
- Tree(s)
- 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 › Altitude/clearance, not maintained
- Pilot in command › IFR procedure, not followed
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 was practicing night instrument landing system in visual conditions when during the third practice approach, the aircraft collided with an object. The pilot broke off the approach and returned to his base airport where it was determined that the left wing came in contact with a tree. Air traffic communications and radar data indicated that the aircraft was established on the localizer during the three approaches, however, was below the minimum descent altitude of 2,000 feet on the first approach by 500 feet and 900 feet on the second approach when crossing the final approach fix (FAF). The FAF is identified via a radial from a VOR. During the third approach, radar data indicated that the aircraft was tracking on the localizer, but continued to descend to 500 feet about 1.7 nautical miles prior to the FAF. The radar data indicated a climb shortly after this point. Testing of the airport approach equipment revealed normal equipment operation. Testing of the aircraft's #1 ILS system found the glide slope to have extremely low sensitivity. The glide slope receiver also could not pick up a signal. The localizer was within tolerance, but off by a dot and a half. The safety pilot reported that he never saw the airport during the third approach and thought that everything was ok.
Probable cause
The pilot's failure to follow the published IFR procedure resulting in failure to maintain clearance from objects during an instrument approach. Trees and an inoperative glide slope receiver were factors.
Verbatim NTSB analysis and probable cause from the NTSB dataset
Sources
NTSB record SEA04LA048
- Event ID
- 20040311X00317
- Case number
- SEA04LA048
- 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 2004-03-03.
- API snapshot SHA-256: aa9da716c8d45334db107a22fc5464523aaf77bf04750f66d3f0c4ace8c6d3db; retrieved 2026-09-22T07:53:55.681Z.