SEA04LA072 · Cessna 170B
Cessna 170B · Accident: loss of control on ground/water during landing
From S67 · Nampa, ID to S67
Event
- NTSB case
- SEA04LA072
- 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
- N8252A
- Operator
- Unknown
- Onboard fatalities
- Unknown
- Route
- From S67 · Nampa, IDTo S67
- 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 · landing roll
- 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 › Aircraft handling, improper
- Pilot in command › Directional control, not maintained
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 in the left seat, who had purchased the aircraft the day prior to the accident, started the flight by making two takeoffs and two full-stop landings. Both of his takeoff rolls were uneventful with no directional control difficulties, but because he was having trouble with directional control during landing, it was decided that the more experienced tail wheel pilot in the right seat would perform a takeoff and landing, during which the pilot in the left seat would keep his hands and feet on the controls in order to feel the control inputs made by the other pilot. The pilot in the right seat experienced "some difficulty" during the takeoff, but he was unsure if it was related to having the left seat pilot on the controls with him. He then made a landing, touching down near the centerline, and pulling the yoke to the "full back" position, while making sure the engine was at idle. Although the initial touchdown was uneventful, soon thereafter the aircraft veered to the right, and the pilot applied left rudder in an attempt to return it to the runway heading. Seeing that the application of rudder alone was not adequate, the pilot applied heavy left brake, but the aircraft continued to the right and exited the right side of the runway. As the aircraft exited the runway, the right seat pilot began applying right brake also, and soon thereafter the aircraft nosed over onto its back. Inspection and testing of the aircraft did not reveal any indication that there had been a brake malfunction or any anomaly in the rudder/tail wheel steering system that would have created an uncontrollable situation. In addition it was determined that although the right seat pilot had about 25 hours in this make and model airplane, it had been "many years" since he had flown one.
Probable cause
The right seat pilot's failure to maintain directional control during the initial part of the landing roll, and his improper handling of the aircraft (excessive braking) as the aircraft departed the side of the runway. Factors include the pilot's lack of recent experience in this make and model aircraft.
Verbatim NTSB analysis and probable cause from the NTSB dataset
Sources
NTSB record SEA04LA072
- Event ID
- 20040427X00519
- Case number
- SEA04LA072
- 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: 6da175067b2407ce3ad974400b3c19aa12aabbe46c1c3553065e6049ac9f9942; retrieved 2026-09-22T07:41:19.457Z.