SEA05CA003 · Piper PA-22/20
Piper PA-22/20 · Accident: loss of control on ground/water during landing
From Rogue Valley International-Medford Airport (MFR) to an unrecorded destination
Event
- NTSB case
- SEA05CA003
- 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
Piper PA-22/20
- Aircraft type
- Piper PA-22
- 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
- N2849Z
- Operator
- Unknown
- Onboard fatalities
- Unknown
- Route
- From Rogue Valley International-Medford Airport (MFR), Medford, ORTo 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 · flare/touchdown
- 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 › Compensation for wind conditions, inadequate
- 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 was practicing touch-and-go landings in crosswind conditions, and during his first landing there was a 40 degree crosswind at five knots. As he was cleared for his second landing, the tower advised him that the wind had changed direction and speed, and he was therefore landing in a 60 degree crosswind of seven knots. During his second landing, he relaxed his "cross control input" too much during the landing flare, and the aircraft's left wing began to lift. He therefore elected to execute a go-around, but as he added power the aircraft began rotating to the left. He therefore elected to try to put the aircraft back onto the runway, but as it touched down, the aircraft was not aligned with the runway, and it therefore quickly veered to the left. As the aircraft departed the side of the runway, the tip of its right wing came in contact with the terrain resulting in substantial damage to the wings internal structure. According to the pilot, there was nothing wrong with the aircraft, and the accident was simply a result of his failure to adequately control the aircraft in the crosswind conditions.
Probable cause
The pilot's inadequate compensation for crosswind conditions during landing, resulting in his failure to maintain directional control. Factors include the presence of crosswinds.
Verbatim NTSB analysis and probable cause from the NTSB dataset
Sources
NTSB record SEA05CA003
- Event ID
- 20041026X01696
- Case number
- SEA05CA003
- 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 2004-10-02.
- API snapshot SHA-256: 77ac1e1245f1eac5b185beee7c991df4dc0d84fe0b9f3b6ec4533ed5b3f09164; retrieved 2026-09-22T06:39:18.941Z.