Westwind Aviation Cessna 172 M accident
Cessna 172 M and Barry Woods Kilroy Pitts Model 12 · Accident: ground collision during landing
Event
- NTSB case
- WPR09FA246
- 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
- Charter & commuter
- 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
Aircraft 1 · Cessna 172 M
- Aircraft type
- Cessna 172
- 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
- N70323
- Operator
- Westwind Aviation
- Onboard fatalities
- Unknown
- Route
- From Sekiu Airport (11S), Sekiu, WATo Skagit Regional Airport (BVS), Burlington, 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 135: Air Taxi & Commuter
- 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
- Ground collision
- DamageDestroyed: beyond practical repair. Substantial: damage that affects the structure, performance or handling and normally needs major repair. Minor: less than that. Glossary
- Substantial
Aircraft 2 · Kilroy Pitts Model 12
- Aircraft type
- Kilroy PITTS
- 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
- N133GT
- Operator
- Barry Woods
- Onboard fatalities
- Unknown
- Route
- From Skagit Regional Airport (BVS), Burlington, WATo Skagit Regional Airport (BVS), Burlington, 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 · flare/touchdown
- 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
- Ground collision
- 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
- Personnel issues › Psychological
Approximate · Coordinates as recorded by the NTSB; no uncertainty radius is established.
NTSB narrative
The Cessna pilot reported that as he entered the downwind leg of the traffic pattern he observed the Pitts making a high-speed, low pass over the runway surface. After reaching a point 3/4 down the runway, the Pitts began a steep, near vertical climb. It then appeared to turn toward the downwind leg. The Cessna pilot made a transmission over the common traffic advisory (CTAF) frequency querying if the Pitts had his airplane in sight. There was no response. The Cessna pilot continued maneuvering the airplane onto base and then final approach, making a radio transmission of his position at each leg. The Cessna touched down normally and began to slow as the pilot applied brakes. While the Cessna slowed, the Pitts landed on top of the left wing. The Pitts skidded out in front of the Cessna, sliding inverted and backwards down the runway; the Cessna skidded and nosed over. The Pitts pilot reported that he aborted his first landing approach due to traffic that had not yet cleared the runway, aggressively ascended to traffic pattern altitude, and began a left traffic pattern. The Pitts pilot stated that during his second approach, he did not see any other airplanes, nor did he hear any other traffic over the CTAF, which he was monitoring. According to 14 CFR 91.113, "Aircraft, while on final approach to land or while landing, have the right-of-way over other aircraft in flight or operating on the surface."
Probable cause
The failure of the pilot of another airplane to maintain adequate visual lookout during the approach.
Verbatim NTSB analysis and probable cause from the NTSB dataset
Sources
NTSB record WPR09FA246
- Event ID
- 20090518X11549
- Case number
- WPR09FA246
- 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 2009-05-17.
- API snapshot SHA-256: 9b700367018cbaf2091651fe68b8a64ae6d17e8f6af100a2fcb6e63e74170e9f; retrieved 2026-09-13T18:15:19.234Z.