SEA04LA066 · PZL Warzawa-Okecie PZL-104 Wilga 35A
PZL Warzawa-Okecie PZL-104 Wilga 35A · Accident: abrupt maneuver on approach
From Skagit Regional Airport (BVS) to Breves Airport (BVS)
Event
- NTSB case
- SEA04LA066
- 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
PZL Warzawa-Okecie PZL-104 Wilga 35A
- Aircraft type
- PZL Warzawa Okecie PZL-104
- 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
- N65ZA
- Operator
- Martynovych, James A. · private individual
- Onboard fatalities
- Unknown
- Route
- From Skagit Regional Airport (BVS), Burlington, WATo Breves Airport (BVS)
- 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 · VFR go-around
- 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
- Abrupt maneuver
- 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
- Passenger › Control interference, inadvertent
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 touch and go landings on runway 10 at the Skagit Regional airport. On the eighth landing the pilot encountered a sudden gust of wind approximately five feet above ground and executed a go around maneuver. He reported that his passenger panicked inadvertently pushing the control stick full forward. The aircraft nosed down steeply to a hard landing impacting the propeller on the runway. The pilot reported that "...better communication & briefing of passenger about go-around may have prevented panic by passenger...." Winds at Arlington Municipal airport, situated 21 nautical miles southeast of Burlington airport, at 1255 on the afternoon of the accident were reported as coming from 120 degrees magnetic at 17 knots with gusts to 20 knots.
Probable cause
The passenger's interference with flight controls during a go-around maneuver. Contributing to the accident were the passenger's anxiety/apprehension, the pilot's inadequate brief to the passenger about potential control interference, and the gusty wind conditions.
Verbatim NTSB analysis and probable cause from the NTSB dataset
Sources
NTSB record SEA04LA066
- Event ID
- 20040413X00450
- Case number
- SEA04LA066
- 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: 4f83eeb545ae65c28ff84c6fbf7a1adeb21577aa84121858ecebb63eedb07d12; retrieved 2026-09-22T07:47:44.733Z.