SEA07LA020 · Cessna 170B
Cessna 170B · Accident: loss of control on ground/water during takeoff
From Billings Logan International Airport (BIL) to Billings Logan International Airport (BIL)
Event
- NTSB case
- SEA07LA020
- 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 170B
- 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
- N2619D
- Operator
- Unknown
- Onboard fatalities
- Unknown
- Route
- From Billings Logan International Airport (BIL), Billings, MTTo Billings Logan International Airport (BIL)
- 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
- Takeoff · roll/run
- 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(cfi) › Ground loop/swerve, encountered
- Pilot in command(cfi) › Remedial action, inadequate
Approximate · Coordinates from the NTSB case API, which marks them as estimated or does not say; no uncertainty radius is established.
NTSB narrative
The winds were from 220 degrees at 12 knots for the instructional flight. The first takeoff and landing on runway 28R in the tailwheel-equipped airplane were uneventful. According to the private pilot receiving instruction, he added power to begin the second takeoff roll, and the airplane "began to weathervane to the left into the wind." He stated that he "did not apply enough right rudder or right brake to avoid/overcome the left turning tendency the crosswind and P-Factor caused." He reduced power to idle, and with the airplane moving at a speed of 10 to 15 knots heading about 30 degrees left of runway heading, the pilot receiving instruction "took out the full left aileron deflection [he] was holding since [they] were now pointing into the wind and actually went partial right aileron." At this point, the flight instructor took control of the airplane. However, the instructor was unable to regain directional control, and the airplane swerved to the left, the left wing lifted, and the right wing struck the runway.
Probable cause
The flight instructor's inadequate remedial action to maintain directional control, which resulted in a ground loop/swerve during takeoff roll. A factor was the failure of the pilot who was receiving instruction to maintain directional control.
Verbatim NTSB analysis and probable cause from the NTSB dataset
Sources
NTSB record SEA07LA020
- Event ID
- 20061212X01775
- Case number
- SEA07LA020
- 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: c89a4f77b15fd5cc7abc845032287cb110ab961b71e224e5af5ecec69320509a; retrieved 2026-09-22T04:13:40.848Z.