Arrow West Aviation Quest KODIAC 100 incident
Quest KODIAC 100 · Incident: system/component malfunction/failure (non-power) during takeoff
From Page, AZ to Canyonlands Regional Airport (CNY)
Event
- NTSB case
- WPR15IA244
- 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
- Incident
- 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
Quest KODIAC 100
- Aircraft type
- Quest KODIAC 100
- 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
- N771RT
- Operator
- Arrow West Aviation
- Onboard fatalities
- Unknown
- Route
- From Page, AZTo Canyonlands Regional Airport (CNY), Moab, UT
- Aircraft age
- About 4 years (built 2011)
- 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
- Takeoff
- 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
- System/component malfunction/failure (non-power)
- DamageDestroyed: beyond practical repair. Substantial: damage that affects the structure, performance or handling and normally needs major repair. Minor: less than that. Glossary
- Minor
Cause areas
- Aircraft › Aircraft structures
- Personnel issues › Action/decision
Approximate · Coordinates as recorded by the NTSB; no uncertainty radius is established.
NTSB narrative
During the takeoff roll on the non-scheduled passenger flight, the pilot's seat slid back abruptly to the full-aft position. Because his right hand was positioned on the throttle for takeoff, the pilot inadvertently retarded the throttle to the idle position as the seat slid aft. The airplane began to veer off the runway and collided with a wire fence.
The seat was designed with two latches, one located on each of the right and left sides of the seat, which are lifted to enable the seat to move along the track. The seat track consisted of two metal rails that were affixed to the floor along the airplane's longitudinal axis. The rails had numerous circular receptacles where the seat stop would engage when the seat was locked into position. In order to move the seat, a handle on the latches would be raised upward, the seat stops would both raise, and the pilot could move the seat. The latch gives no positive indication (feel) when effectively raised or lowered. The before takeoff checklist contained in the pilot's operating handbook included the item, "seat locked and secure."
An examination of the pilot's seat revealed that both the left and the right aft locking foot caps were damaged. The locking foot caps comprise a four-pronged housing that encages the seat stop mechanisms. It is likely that the caps were damaged during maintenance and/or installation. Instead of completely removing the seat from the airplane, the technician likely pushed the seat all the way aft on the tracks. Investigators attempted to replicate the incident scenario and were successful only when applying an extreme side load or manipulating the latch. The lack of positive response in the latch of the stops being engaged in the tracks made it difficult to verify if the seat stops were positively engaged before the takeoff attempt. It is unknown if the damaged locking foot caps contributed to the incident.
Probable cause
The pilot's inadvertent failure to engage the seat in the locked position before takeoff, which resulted in the seat sliding back during the takeoff roll and a subsequent loss of directional control. Contributing to the incident was the seat locking mechanism's design of limited feedback, which made it difficult to verify if the seat stops were positively engaged.
Verbatim NTSB analysis and probable cause from the NTSB dataset
Sources
NTSB record WPR15IA244
- Event ID
- 20150818X00406
- Case number
- WPR15IA244
- 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: 58de9bbb8bd93343a155664707f3e4ba9e50d9d74404753c949b36d77e5a7956; retrieved 2026-09-16T02:41:00.406Z.