ERA13LA198 · Franke Russell J SEAREY
Franke Russell J SEAREY · Accident while taxiing
From Polk City, FL (no airport) to UF Durbin Helipad (3FD4)
Event
- NTSB case
- ERA13LA198
- 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
Franke Russell J SEAREY
- Aircraft type
- Franke Russell 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
- N92319
- Operator
- Unknown
- Onboard fatalities
- Unknown
- Route
- From Polk City, FL (no airport)To UF Durbin Helipad (3FD4), Groveland, FL
- 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
- Taxi · into takeoff position
- 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
- 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
- Environmental issues › Physical environment
- Personnel issues › Action/decision
Approximate · Coordinates as recorded by the NTSB; no uncertainty radius is established.
NTSB narrative
According to the pilot, he taxied the amphibious airplane down a boat ramp following a vintage twin-engine amphibious airplane that weighed more than 6,000 pounds. The other airplane took off, and the accident airplane then encountered a 2- to 3-foot water wake. The pilot "quartered" his airplane into the wake, and, subsequently, the right side pitched up, and the left side pitched down. The pilot then looked at the left horizontal stabilizer via a mirror on the airplane's left wing strut, conducted a full flight control check, and noted no anomalies. The pilot then began the takeoff, and the airplane bounced once along the choppy water surface before becoming airborne. Once airborne, the pilot noted pitch control problems and was not able to level the airplane until it reached about 1,800 feet. He was then able to descend the airplane at a rate of about 50 feet per minute by maintaining airspeed just above stall. The pilot circled the lake six times before being able to land. Upon landing, the right wing bounced twice, and, during the second bounce, the right horizontal stabilizer was substantially damaged when it dragged through the water.
Postaccident examination of the airplane revealed a broken outboard left horizontal stabilizer tube that likely broke during the wake encounter. The examination also revealed that the bolt connecting three stabilizer cables had torn into the fabric, which likely resulted in the control stick binding in a pitch-up position upon rotation.
Probable cause
An inadvertent encounter with the water wake from a larger amphibious airplane before takeoff and the pilot's subsequent inadequate preflight inspection of the airplane during which he failed to note damage caused by the wake encounter.
Verbatim NTSB analysis and probable cause from the NTSB dataset
Sources
NTSB record ERA13LA198
- Event ID
- 20130412X91833
- Case number
- ERA13LA198
- 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. 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: 93fe2d3d50025663b54a5ab2e074cf910d8668b19a003cc8fe72635091f26fa2; retrieved 2026-09-15T21:17:03.322Z.