SEA06LA012 · Cessna 172
Cessna 172 · Accident: in flight collision with object while maneuvering
From Portland Hillsboro Airport (HIO) to Siletz Bay State Airport (S45)
Event
- NTSB case
- SEA06LA012
- 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
- N6000A
- Operator
- Unknown
- Onboard fatalities
- Unknown
- Route
- From Portland Hillsboro Airport (HIO), Hillsboro, ORTo Siletz Bay State Airport (S45), Gleneden Beach, 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
- 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
- Tree(s)
- 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
The pilot reported that he was in-flight maneuvering over the airstrip to determine runway conditions. There was ground fog present and the lighting conditions were "very dark." The pilot circled the airstrip three or four times and he had the rotating beacon and runway lights in sight, however, he lost sight of the runway lights and when he passed by the rotating beacon he pulled up and heard something hit the right wing. The pilot believed that he was near the southwest end of the airport environment when this happened. The pilot stated that he was unsure if he hit a tree or a bird, but decided not to land and diverted to another airport 42 nautical miles to the northeast, where a landing was made without further incident. Inspection of the aircraft revealed that the right wing tip, to include the outboard rib and about half of the right side aileron had been torn away.
Probable cause
The pilot's failure to maintain clearance from objects while maneuvering over the airport environment. Dark night conditions, trees, and ground fog were factors.
Verbatim NTSB analysis and probable cause from the NTSB dataset
Sources
NTSB record SEA06LA012
- Event ID
- 20051128X01893
- Case number
- SEA06LA012
- 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 2005-10-21.
- API snapshot SHA-256: 587f52b92beac88a0eb86e136f39176ec1cb9c273d75fdb49fbd7238dfa08023; retrieved 2026-09-22T05:17:18.235Z.