SEA08LA017 · Kelly F1D
Kelly F1D · Accident: loss of control in flight on approach
From 4SD · Reno, NV to 4SD
Event
- NTSB case
- SEA08LA017
- 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
- 1 · 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
Kelly F1D
- Aircraft type
- Kelly F1
- 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
- N42KK
- Operator
- Patrick J. Gleason · private individual
- Onboard fatalities
- Unknown
- Route
- From 4SD · Reno, NVTo 4SD
- 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 downwind
- 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
- Also codedOther events the NTSB coded in the sequence, such as a wire strike after a loss of power. Flight Findings uses them for its kinds of event. Glossary
- Stall; Stall/spin
- 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 as recorded by the NTSB; no uncertainty radius is established.
NTSB narrative
The pilot departed on his first flight in the experimental amateur-built airplane. Before departure, the pilot asked a person, who also became an eyewitness to the accident, to monitor the radio and document information regarding the test flight transmitted by the pilot. During the preflight briefing, the pilot told the witness that part of the flight would include doing an "approach to stall." The pilot topped off the 5-gallon fuel tank and departed for an estimated 30-minute flight. The witness observed the airplane maneuvering near the airport, and the pilot made several transmissions to him. The witness said the airplane entered a high downwind (approximately 2,000-3,000 feet above the ground). He observed the airplane slow to a nose high attitude while maintaining altitude. Then, while maintaining the same pitch attitude, a constant loss of altitude occurred with the wings level for approximately 3 to 4 seconds. He heard no increase in engine power nor was the airplane's pitch angle reduced. There appeared to be an abrupt entry into a right spin, and 6 to 8 turns were observed with a nearly vertical impact with the ground. Post accident examination of the engine revealed no abnormalities that would have precluded normal operation. No logbooks documenting airplane maintenance were found, and no pilot flight logbooks were found.
Probable cause
The pilot's loss of airplane control while performing intentional approach to stall maneuvers. Contributing to the accident was the inadvertent entry of the airplane into a spin.
Verbatim NTSB analysis and probable cause from the NTSB dataset
Sources
NTSB record SEA08LA017
- Event ID
- 20071109X01779
- Case number
- SEA08LA017
- 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. 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: 5bf1dd2a7b6e93a16bbf49da8b65af3f9f2c6af9b3a79f6169a1add526f363a1; retrieved 2026-09-20T16:08:26.222Z.