SEA05CA080 · Cessna 172
Cessna 172 · Accident: loss of control in flight on approach
From Salem-Willamette Valley Airport/McNary Field (SLE) to Flying M Airport (OR05)
Event
- NTSB case
- SEA05CA080
- 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 172
- Aircraft type
- Cessna 172
- 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
- N8400L
- Operator
- Unknown
- Onboard fatalities
- Unknown
- Route
- From Salem-Willamette Valley Airport/McNary Field (SLE), Salem, ORTo Flying M Airport (OR05), Yamhill, OR
- 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
- Loss of control in flight
- 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 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
In a written statement, the pilot reported that he was approaching the airstrip from the east for a landing on runway 25. The pilot noted, via the wind sock, that the wind was out of the north at about 5 miles per hour, but variable. The pilot stated that he had just started the flare when the airplane "did a sharp shift to the left, just to the side of the runway." The pilot attempted to correct for the crosswind, however, the airplane continued to move further off to the south side of the runway towards a fence which was located about 25 feet away. The left horizontal stabilizer collided with a fence post about the same time the wheels touched the surface. Due to a vehicle that was on the road that runs parallel to the runway and in close proximity to the airplane, the pilot added full power in an attempt to avoid the car. The airplane traveled up an incline back to the runway surface and toward trees off the north side of the airstrip. The airplane collided with several small trees and eventually traveled into a culvert and tipped over onto its nose, coming to rest in about three feet of water. The pilot reported no mechanical failures or malfunctions with the airplane at the time of the accident.
Probable cause
The pilot's failure to maintain aircraft control while on final approach for landing. A crosswind, a fence post and the pilot's inadequate compensation for the crosswind condition were contributing factors.
Verbatim NTSB analysis and probable cause from the NTSB dataset
Sources
NTSB record SEA05CA080
- Event ID
- 20050504X00549
- Case number
- SEA05CA080
- 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: 164c5bf491f38a36213eaf8341bc3d4967961815963d87eab0176465d0994c13; retrieved 2026-09-22T06:06:07.833Z.