SEA08CA215 · North American AT-6
North American AT-6 · Accident: collision with terrain/object (non-CFIT) during landing
From Arlington Municipal Airport (AWO) to Arlington Municipal Airport (AWO)
Event
- NTSB case
- SEA08CA215
- 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
North American AT-6
- Aircraft type
- North American AT-6
- 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
- N39313
- Operator
- Peter Jonathan Houghton
- Onboard fatalities
- Unknown
- Route
- From Arlington Municipal Airport (AWO), Arlington, WATo Arlington Municipal Airport (AWO), Arlington, WA
- 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
- 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
- Collision with terrain/object (non-CFIT)
- 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
- Environmental issues › Conditions/weather/phenomena
- Personnel issues › Action/decision
Approximate · Coordinates as recorded by the NTSB; no uncertainty radius is established.
NTSB narrative
The purpose of the flight was to re-familiarize the front seat pilot, who was a perspective buyer, with the tailwheel-equipped airplane. The owner of the airplane, who was also a rated pilot, occupied the rear seat. During the landing roll on runway 16, the front seat pilot noted that the airplane started to veer to the right. The rear seat pilot took control of the airplane and added power attempting to go-around. The airplane exited the runway as it continued to veer to the right and became airborne after striking a knoll adjacent to the runway. Subsequently, the left wing struck the ground and the airplane landed hard and impacted the concrete windsock segmented circle. Examination of the airplane revealed that the fuselage and wings were structurally damaged. The rear seat pilot reported no anomalies with the flight control system or engine. Recorded weather data revealed that 12 minutes prior to the accident, the wind was from 330-degrees at 5 knots.
Probable cause
The front seated pilot's inadequate compensation for the right quartering tailwind and failure to maintain directional control. Also causal was the rear seated pilot's inadequate remedial action and failure to regain directional control.
Verbatim NTSB analysis and probable cause from the NTSB dataset
Sources
NTSB record SEA08CA215
- Event ID
- 20081006X60010
- Case number
- SEA08CA215
- 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: local date, investigation status. Values present in the bulk record are kept.
- The date is the local date; the NTSB stores the UTC date 2008-10-01.
- API snapshot SHA-256: 9abc8e5ea31219c838a0be9db4b76b9b4df546bbc7e355bc7e1c07f9c58eef46; retrieved 2026-09-15T10:24:20.878Z.