SEA07LA131 · Cessna 150M
Cessna 150M · Accident: on ground/water collision with terrain/water during landing
From U77 · Spanish Fork, UT to U77 · Spanish Fork, UT
Event
- NTSB case
- SEA07LA131
- 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 150M
- Aircraft type
- Cessna 150
- 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
- N9397U
- Operator
- Kerry D. Welch · private individual
- Onboard fatalities
- Unknown
- Route
- From U77 · Spanish Fork, UTTo U77 · Spanish Fork, UT
- 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
- On ground/water collision with terrain/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
Soon after touchdown in gusty crosswind conditions, the aircraft began rocking from side to side. The student pilot was unable to keep the aircraft aligned with the runway, and soon thereafter it departed the left side of the landing surface. After departing the runway it crossed an unpaved median and a taxiway, and then encountered a small ditch. The encounter with the ditch stopped the aircraft, and also resulted in the aircraft's right wing coming in contact with the terrain. There was no evidence of any anomaly in the rudder control system or the nosewheel steering system. In a post-accident interview, the pilot stated that the crosswind was more than he was able to handle.
Probable cause
The student pilot's inadequate compensation for gusty crosswind conditions, and his failure to maintain directional control during the landing roll. Factors include gusty crosswinds, and a ditch near the runway environment.
Verbatim NTSB analysis and probable cause from the NTSB dataset
Sources
NTSB record SEA07LA131
- Event ID
- 20070608X00695
- Case number
- SEA07LA131
- 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: 6e44fe66f216593c08aeefbb7e74aa6082a20db2022e713007c0be00457fa36d; retrieved 2026-09-22T03:49:03.747Z.