WPR09FA316 · Cessna 172M
Cessna 172M · Accident: collision during takeoff/landing on approach
From Yakima Air Terminal McAllister Field (YKM) to Tieton State Airport (4S6)
Event
- NTSB case
- WPR09FA316
- 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
Cessna 172M
- 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
- N4396R
- Operator
- Unknown
- Onboard fatalities
- Unknown
- Route
- From Yakima Air Terminal McAllister Field (YKM), Yakima, WATo Tieton State Airport (4S6), Rimrock, 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
- Approach · VFR go-around
- 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 during takeoff/landing
- 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
- Tree(s)
- 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 › Physical environment
- Personnel issues › Task performance
Approximate · Coordinates from the NTSB case API, not marked as estimated; no uncertainty radius is established.
NTSB narrative
The pilot attempted to perform a landing at the back country turf airstrip. He had not landed at this airstrip before and witnesses reported gusty tail wind conditions existed as the pilot attempted the landing. The runway was surrounded by trees, and rapidly rising mountainous terrain existed at the departure end of the accident runway. The terrain is such that under most circumstances, landings are made in the direction of this runway irrespective of wind conditions. Witnesses observed the airplane approach the runway high and fast. The airplane did not touch down at the normal touchdown point, but rather continued at tree top level before the pilot added power about 3/4 of the way along the runway. The airplane then struck trees at the end of the runway in a nose high attitude. Post accident examination of the engine and airframe did not reveal any malfunctions or failures that would have prevented normal flight. The pilot had relatively low total flight experience, which included 2 hours of total flight time in the preceding 90 days, with his last flight occurring 2 months prior to the accident. Additionally, he had no experience landing at turf airstrips, or airports located within mountainous terrain.
Probable cause
The pilot's failure to maintain clearance from trees during a go-around. Contributing to the accident was the pilot's lack of flight experience, and his delayed initiation of a go-around.
Verbatim NTSB analysis and probable cause from the NTSB dataset
Sources
NTSB record WPR09FA316
- Event ID
- 20090628X13313
- Case number
- WPR09FA316
- 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: 25994975ca2ef0e6237995fc0b58cb91cd2a3cc3cd6b2208476bea5b680fc109; retrieved 2026-09-13T20:18:43.034Z.