SEA04LA085 · Stinson SR-10E
Stinson SR-10E · Accident: undershoot on approach
From Skagit Regional Airport (BVS) to Eliza Island, WA
Event
- NTSB case
- SEA04LA085
- 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
Stinson SR-10E
- Aircraft type
- Stinson SR-10
- 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
- N27782
- Operator
- Unknown
- Onboard fatalities
- Unknown
- Route
- From Skagit Regional Airport (BVS), Burlington, WATo Eliza Island, WA
- 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 pattern final
- 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
- Undershoot
- 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 › Distance/altitude, misjudged
- Pilot in command › Proper glidepath, 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 had never landed on the 1,600 foot grass airstrip before. Several days prior to the accident the pilot made 5 or 6 practice short field approaches and landings, safely stopping in less than 1,600 feet. During the accident approach and landing the pilot was dragging the airplane in under power in a higher than normal nose high attitude, which precluded him from seeing the first part of the runway. Thinking he would touch down in the first 100 feet, the pilot reduced the power to idle and started to flare when the airplane impacted a log, which was partially buried at the top of the beach bordering the end of the runway, separating both main landing gear. The aircraft subsequently slid down the runway approximately 100 to 150 feet before going up on its nose and falling back on its undercarriage and left wing. Both propeller blades were bent and the left wing tip was bent up approximately 20 degrees. No anomalies were reported with the airframe or engine which would have precluded normal operations. .
Probable cause
The pilot's misjudgment of altitude/distance resulting in an undershoot of the runway.
Verbatim NTSB analysis and probable cause from the NTSB dataset
Sources
NTSB record SEA04LA085
- Event ID
- 20040526X00673
- Case number
- SEA04LA085
- 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: bd4efab3be36d3f38c324450c5e4a1169aef77dc26451484104378573300c017; retrieved 2026-09-22T07:32:38.336Z.