GAA16CA097 · Cessna 175
Cessna 175 · Accident: abnormal runway contact during landing
From Glacier Park International Airport (GPI) to Seeley Lake Airport (23S)
Event
- NTSB case
- GAA16CA097
- 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
Cessna 175
- Aircraft type
- Cessna 175
- 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
- N9493B
- Operator
- Unknown
- Onboard fatalities
- Unknown
- Route
- From Glacier Park International Airport (GPI), Kalispell, MTTo Seeley Lake Airport (23S), Seeley Lake, MT
- Aircraft age
- About 58 years (built 1958)
- 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 · 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
- Abnormal runway contact
- 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 › Conditions/weather/phenomena
- Environmental issues › Operating environment
- Personnel issues › Task performance
Approximate · Coordinates as recorded by the NTSB; no uncertainty radius is established.
NTSB narrative
The pilot reported that during the approach he was informed by a person on the ground, who was not associated with airport operations, that there was about 3 inches of compacted snow on the runway. Before attempting to land, he completed a low pass over the runway to observe the runway conditions, but reported that it was dusk and he was observing flat light conditions.
The pilot reported that the touchdown was normal, but about 50 to 75 feet into the landing roll the airplane pulled to the left. He attempted to correct with right rudder, but was unable to stop the airplane from ground looping to the left into a snow berm. After the accident, the pilot observed that he "landed left of center" and the left main landing gear caught a one foot snow berm. The right wing and right elevator were substantially damaged.
According to the Federal Aviation Administration Airport Facility Directory, the destination had "intermittent" snow removal and the airport manager could be called for current conditions. The runway used was not equipped with runway lights.
The pilot reported there were no mechanical malfunctions or failures with the airplane that would have precluded normal operation.
Probable cause
The pilot' failure to identify the plowed runway width in dusk and flat light conditions, which resulted in a touchdown left of the runway center, an impact with a snow berm, and a ground loop.
Verbatim NTSB analysis and probable cause from the NTSB dataset
Sources
NTSB record GAA16CA097
- Event ID
- 20160107X42121
- Case number
- GAA16CA097
- 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 2016-01-05.
- API snapshot SHA-256: 3a59a9f6a0cb1e8973473e1f24346adee228a90e79ab23cb911cedc7580523c3; retrieved 2026-09-16T03:04:49.424Z.