SEA06LA026 · Hitchens EDI 90FT
Hitchens EDI 90FT · Accident: loss of control in flight on approach
From Olympia Regional Airport (KOLM) to Chehalis Centralia Airport (KCLS)
Event
- NTSB case
- SEA06LA026
- 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
Hitchens EDI 90FT
- Aircraft type
- Hitchens EDI-90
- 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
- N900EH
- Operator
- Joel D. Pressly · private individual
- Onboard fatalities
- Unknown
- Route
- From Olympia Regional Airport (KOLM), Olympia, WATo Chehalis Centralia Airport (KCLS), Chehalis, 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
- 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
While on a one-half mile VFR GPS straight-in final approach, the pilot lost control of the aircraft for undetermined reasons. The aircraft then rolled into a bank angle of about 90 degrees, and began to descend toward the terrain with the engine producing power at a very high RPM. The pilot was not successful in making a complete recovery from the loss of control, and during his attempted remedial action, the right wing of the aircraft made contact with the terrain. The aircraft struck the ground numerous times over a distance of 320 feet, ultimately coming to rest with the wings separated from the fuselage at the end of the aforementioned wreckage track. A post-accident inspection of the aircraft and engine by an FAA Airworthiness inspector, as well as a follow-up inspection of the aircraft by the NTSB IIC and the same Airworthiness Inspector, did not reveal any evidence of an engine malfunction or any pre-impact anomaly in the aircraft's structure or flight control system. Due to the extent of his injuries, the pilot did not remember anything about the accident or about being on an approach to the airport.
Probable cause
The pilot's loss of control of the aircraft for undetermined reasons while on a one-half mile straight-in VFR GPS final approach. Factors included his unsuccessful remedial action, and contact with the terrain in an open soft field.
Verbatim NTSB analysis and probable cause from the NTSB dataset
Sources
NTSB record SEA06LA026
- Event ID
- 20051216X01983
- Case number
- SEA06LA026
- 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: cddcf90647f1d56884395d7c56ec865cc8d941328a6e15fada9cee3539a80a81; retrieved 2026-09-21T09:01:21.204Z.