WPR12FA385 · Easton SEAREY
Easton SEAREY · Accident on approach
From Orcas Island Airport (ORS) to Friday Harbor, WA (no airport)
Event
- NTSB case
- WPR12FA385
- 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
Easton SEAREY
- Aircraft type
- Easton SEAREY
- 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
- N346PE
- Operator
- Richard D. Bach · private individual
- Onboard fatalities
- Unknown
- Route
- From Orcas Island Airport (ORS), Eastsound, WATo Friday Harbor, WA (no airport)
- Aircraft age
- About 4 years (built 2008)
- 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 final
- 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
- Miscellaneous/other
- 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
- Wire
- 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
- Personnel issues › Action/decision
Approximate · Coordinates from the NTSB case API, not marked as estimated; no uncertainty radius is established.
NTSB narrative
The pilot was landing to the south at a private airstrip. The owner of the airstrip observed the airplane on short final when it struck transmission wires that ran perpendicular to and north of the airstrip. The airplane nosed over and impacted terrain. Postimpact examination of the airplane revealed wire strike marks on the left main landing gear and the keel of the fuselage. No preimpact mechanical discrepancies were found with the airplane's airframe or engine that would have prevented normal operation. The airstrip owner stated that he was unaware of the pilot's impending visit. He said that he tells all visiting pilots to land to the north so as to land uphill and avoid the transmission wires. The airstrip owner also reported that he talked to a pilot who spoke to the accident pilot before he departed on the accident flight and who informed him of the presence of wires at the north end of the airstrip.
Probable cause
The pilot’s inadequate glidepath and failure to maintain clearance from the transmission wire during a landing approach.
Verbatim NTSB analysis and probable cause from the NTSB dataset
Sources
NTSB record WPR12FA385
- Event ID
- 20120901X30019
- Case number
- WPR12FA385
- 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: 0783591fd9abe3e1913e00d958d15a584fa25430949556726b5d0331ab164d08; retrieved 2026-09-15T19:38:29.193Z.