SEA06CA103 · Cessna 172M
Cessna 172M · Accident: loss of control on ground/water during landing
From Bozeman Yellowstone International Airport (KBZN) to 6S5 · Hamilton, MT
Event
- NTSB case
- SEA06CA103
- 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 172M
- 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
- N12808
- Operator
- Unknown
- Onboard fatalities
- Unknown
- Route
- From Bozeman Yellowstone International Airport (KBZN), Bozeman, MTTo 6S5 · Hamilton, MT
- 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
- Landing · landing roll
- 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 on ground/water
- 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 › Compensation for wind conditions, inadequate
- Pilot in command › Directional 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
As the pilot neared the airport, he was advised by the UNICOM operator that the winds were 270 degrees at 15 knots, gusting to 25 knots. As he rolled out on a left downwind for runway 16, the pilot determined that there was a strong crosswind due to the amount of crab required to hold a ground track parallel to the runway. As the pilot was turning onto final, the UNICOM operator advised him that at that point in time, the winds were blowing at 10 knots. In order to maintain the proper ground track on final, the pilot crabbed the aircraft into the wind, and then switched to a wing-low forward slip on short final. Although the touchdown was uneventful, about 50 feet into the ground roll, the aircraft encountered a strong crosswind gust from the right. The pilot was unable to adequately compensate for the effects of the gust, and the aircraft's right wing lifted, and the aircraft headed toward the left side of the runway. After departing the runway, the aircraft entered a large ditch, impacting its far side with sufficient force to result in substantial damage. After the accident, it was determined that due to building weather in the nearby mountains, the winds in the area were almost constantly changing direction and velocity.
Probable cause
The pilot's inadequate compensation for the wind conditions during the landing roll which resulted in his failure to maintain directional control. Factors included variable winds and gusty crosswinds.
Verbatim NTSB analysis and probable cause from the NTSB dataset
Sources
NTSB record SEA06CA103
- Event ID
- 20060616X00751
- Case number
- SEA06CA103
- 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: 1131dc909f2880d4656569a2e4445c1b35043de4fc446f4956f6c26e793cd024; retrieved 2026-09-22T04:54:28.502Z.