SEA05LA198 · Cessna 170A
Cessna 170A · Accident: in flight collision with object while maneuvering
From 095 · Sullivan Lake, WA to 095 · Unknown, WA
Event
- NTSB case
- SEA05LA198
- 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
- 1 · 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 170A
- 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
- N9527A
- Operator
- Unknown
- Onboard fatalities
- Unknown
- Route
- From 095 · Sullivan Lake, WATo 095 · Unknown, 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
- 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 object
- Also codedOther events the NTSB coded in the sequence, such as a wire strike after a loss of power. Flight Findings uses them for its kinds of event. Glossary
- Wire, transmission
- 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 › Clearance, 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
After arriving in the area of the accident, the pilot first flew to the north while low over the trees along the side of the Pend Oreille River. He then reversed course and headed to the south about 100 feet or less over the river. As he proceeded south over the river, the aircraft impacted a pair of unmarked power transmission wires that run across the river. Immediately upon contacting the power lines, the aircraft's pitch attitude rotated to a near vertical position, and it descended nearly straight down into the river. In less than two minutes after hitting the surface of the river, the aircraft sank in about 10 feet of water. It was later determined that the power lines were between 80 and 90 feet above the surface of the river. An inspection of the aircraft revealed wires had contacted the propeller, the lower portion of the fuselage just aft of the door frames, and the vertical stabilizer leading edge where it intersects the fuselage. Control continuity was established to the elevator, and there was no indication that there had been any anomaly associated with the engine.
Probable cause
The pilot's failure during low-level maneuvering flight, to maintain clearance from a pair of unmarked power lines. Factors include the pilot's intentional low altitude flight/maneuver and wires.
Verbatim NTSB analysis and probable cause from the NTSB dataset
Sources
NTSB record SEA05LA198
- Event ID
- 20050923X01521
- Case number
- SEA05LA198
- 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: 2a1c33e18a074e9b20ab96581b2216a86ae2373fca0c4dbf63c128a5c9807b5e; retrieved 2026-09-20T17:52:56.347Z.