SEA08LA120 · Yakovlev Yak 52
Yakovlev Yak 52 · Accident: loss of control in flight while maneuvering
From Green Mountain STOLport (WA67) to an unrecorded destination
Event
- NTSB case
- SEA08LA120
- 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
Yakovlev Yak 52
- Aircraft type
- Yakovlev YAK-52
- 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
- N62813
- Operator
- Unknown
- Onboard fatalities
- Unknown
- Route
- From Green Mountain STOLport (WA67), Vancouver, WATo 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 · aerobatics
- Defining eventThe 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
- 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
- Aircraft › Aircraft oper/perf/capability
Approximate · Coordinates from the NTSB case API, which marks them as estimated or does not say; no uncertainty radius is established.
NTSB narrative
Witnesses located near the accident reported seeing the airplane takeoff, make a 180 degree turn, and fly down the runway at an altitude of about 30 feet above ground level (agl). As the airplane crossed the end of the runway, it pitched upwards into a steep climb, and the pilot did an aileron roll to the right, about 200 feet agl. The witness said that at the completion of the roll, the airplane appeared to be in a level attitude when a slight movement was observed, "as if it hit turbulence." The airplane subsequently descended in a nose-low attitude, eventually descending below a tree line. Examination of the airplane revealed no anomalies with the engine or airframe that would have precluded normal operation.
Probable cause
The pilot's failure to maintain an airspeed sufficient to avoid a stall during a low altitude aerobatic maneuver. Contributing to the accident was the low altitude at which the pilot initiated the maneuver.
Verbatim NTSB analysis and probable cause from the NTSB dataset
Sources
NTSB record SEA08LA120
- Event ID
- 20080508X00636
- Case number
- SEA08LA120
- Dataset
- full-current
- Source SHA-256
- 5cf380f0061817c0331a6b2d8cc7e0ee3a79bea469a1001dc5c10e56f35f5ab3
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: e1e2a8164276086278d8e9336773d1595d45d0951ab93a6e11b796cec6e88869; retrieved 2026-09-13T19:03:54.642Z.