SEA05LA052 · Avery Glasair
Avery Glasair · Accident: in flight collision with terrain/water while maneuvering
From Portland International Airport (PDX) to Jack Mc Namara Field Airport (CEC)
Event
- NTSB case
- SEA05LA052
- 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
- 2 · 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
Avery Glasair
- Aircraft type
- Avery GLASAIR
- 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
- N262WG
- Operator
- Unknown
- Onboard fatalities
- Unknown
- Route
- From Portland International Airport (PDX), Portland, ORTo Jack Mc Namara Field Airport (CEC), Crescent City, CA
- 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
- Maneuvering
- 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 terrain/water
- DamageDestroyed: beyond practical repair. Substantial: damage that affects the structure, performance or handling and normally needs major repair. Minor: less than that. Glossary
- Destroyed
Cause areas
- Reason for occurrence undetermined
Approximate · Coordinates from the NTSB case API, which marks them as estimated or does not say; no uncertainty radius is established.
NTSB narrative
During a flight in night visual meteorological conditions, the pilot reported to air traffic control that he had his destination airport in sight. Flight following services were terminated and the pilot was instructed to squawk 1200 transponder code and frequency change was approved. Radar data indicated that the flight was about 14 miles from the destination airport and at 3,600 feet MSL. The flight tracking indicated that about 36 seconds later, the tracking started a left turn to the east for unknown reasons, and continued to descend at about 1,000 feet per minute completing approximately a 180 degree turn before radar contact was lost at 400 feet. Just prior to loss of radar contact, the pilot made one transmission to Seattle Center stating "Seattle Glasair 2WG." The controller responded to the transmission, however, the pilot did not respond. The fuselage, minus the engine, washed ashore six days later. The gascolator, the line from the gascolator to the electric boost pump and the output fuel line running from the electric boost pump to the engine driven fuel pump were removed from the firewall. The output fuel line from the electric boost pump was intact. The b-nut on the end of the line which would attach to the inlet fitting on the engine driven fuel pump was intact. That b-nut was further inspected by the National Transportation Safety Board Materials Laboratory in Washington DC. The Senior Materials Engineer reported that "Some thread damage was observed on the threads at the fitting end of the nut. All damage was limited to within one to two threads from the end." The engineer further reported, "The thread peaks of two threads closest to the fitting end of the nut were deformed and smeared toward the fitting end." Further inspection was not possible as the engine was not recovered, therefore evidence of a mechanical failure or malfunction could not be determined. Toxicology results found Amphetamine in the urine and not the blood which was retrieved from the chest cavity. Other than the unexplained course reversal during the last few minutes prior to the accident, normal flight operations were depicted via the radar tracking and in flight communications.
Probable cause
In flight collision with water while maneuvering for undetermined reasons.
Verbatim NTSB analysis and probable cause from the NTSB dataset
Sources
NTSB record SEA05LA052
- Event ID
- 20050225X00234
- Case number
- SEA05LA052
- 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: 3b3c20795f13593ab286d2f1e17089591ba519ebb630bcc92d5920e23acb3126; retrieved 2026-09-20T18:06:48.974Z.