SEA07LA217 · Taylorcraft BF12
Taylorcraft BF12 · Accident: airframe, component or system failure while maneuvering
From 3S1 · Lake Oswego, OR to an unrecorded destination
Event
- NTSB case
- SEA07LA217
- 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
- 2 · 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
Taylorcraft BF12
- Aircraft type
- Taylorcraft BF12
- 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
- N13060
- Operator
- Unknown
- Onboard fatalities
- Unknown
- Route
- From 3S1 · Lake Oswego, ORTo not recorded
- 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
- Airframe, component or system failure
- 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
- Owner/pilot mechanic › Maintenance, annual inspection, inadequate
- Wing, bracing strut › Corroded
- Wing, bracing strut › Fatigue
- Wing, bracing strut › Fractured
- Wing, bracing strut › Separation
Approximate · Coordinates from the NTSB case API, which marks them as estimated or does not say; no uncertainty radius is established.
NTSB narrative
The 67-year-old float equipped Taylorcraft crashed into a river following a wing lift strut separation. A witness reported that it appeared the airplane was going to land; however, just before touchdown it began to ascend and enter a left turn. The witness said that shortly after entering the turn, the airplane's left wing buckled and folded back against the fuselage. The airplane then entered an uncontrolled descent to impact with the water. Visual examination of the fractured wing strut attachment fitting showed substantial corrosion and pitting throughout the assembly. Further examination utilizing a scanning electron microscope (SEM) revealed that the left wing strut fitting fractured due to extensive corrosion followed by fatigue cracking. The lower side of the fitting had corrosion pitting that extended from the interior of the fitting completely through the thickness in some areas. The upper side of the fitting was also thinned due to corrosion. Several areas of the fracture surfaces showed oxidation consistent with progressive crack growth over an extended period of time, and fatigue features were found in areas not damaged by rubbing or corrosion. The most recent annual inspection was completed 2 months prior to the accident by the owner, who held an airframe and powerplant technician license. It was not determined which one of the two pilots, an airline transport pilot/certified flight instructor (also the owner of the airplane) seated in the left front seat or the airline transport pilot/certified flight instructor (CFI) seated in the right front seat, was manipulating the flight controls when the accident occurred.
Probable cause
The corrosion, fatigue fracture, and subsequent separation of the left wing lift strut attachment fitting. Also causal was the inadequate maintenance and annual inspection by the owner/pilot/mechanic.
Verbatim NTSB analysis and probable cause from the NTSB dataset
Sources
NTSB record SEA07LA217
- Event ID
- 20070808X01147
- Case number
- SEA07LA217
- 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: dae286bcbe412602f1458c53a97ed7c9de275e53c28ded4ebc7226d373ee4f3b; retrieved 2026-09-20T16:25:19.887Z.