GAA17CA541 · Rudberg Todd W VANS ACFT RV8 UNDESIGNAT
Rudberg Todd W VANS ACFT RV8 UNDESIGNAT · Accident: wildlife encounter (non-bird) during landing
From Seattle Paine Field International Airport (PAE) to Nehalem Bay State Airport (3S7)
Event
- NTSB case
- GAA17CA541
- 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
- Instrument Meteorological Cond
Rudberg Todd W VANS ACFT RV8 UNDESIGNAT
- Aircraft type
- Rudberg Todd VANS ACFT RV8
- 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
- N232TB
- Operator
- Unknown
- Onboard fatalities
- Unknown
- Route
- From Seattle Paine Field International Airport (PAE), Everett, WATo Nehalem Bay State Airport (3S7), Manzanita, OR
- Aircraft age
- About 14 years (built 2003)
- 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
- Wildlife encounter (non-bird)
- 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
Approximate · Coordinates as recorded by the NTSB; no uncertainty radius is established.
NTSB narrative
The pilot reported that he landed on the runway and noticed an elk running toward the nose of the airplane. He applied full throttle and climbed to avoid impact, but the propeller struck the elk. The pilot shut off the engine, and the airplane descended to the runway. When the airplane touched down on the runway, a second elk collided with the airplane's left wing. The airplane veered to the left, and the right main landing gear collapsed. The airplane then veered to the right and came to rest on the right wing.
The airplane sustained substantial damage to both wings.
The Airport Facility Directory for the accident airport stated that there was wildlife in the vicinity of the runway.
The pilot reported that there were no preaccident mechanical malfunctions or failures with the airplane that would have precluded normal operation.
Probable cause
The airplane’s collision with two elks during landing.
Verbatim NTSB analysis and probable cause from the NTSB dataset
Sources
NTSB record GAA17CA541
- Event ID
- 20170916X14905
- Case number
- GAA17CA541
- 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 2017-09-17.
- API snapshot SHA-256: 8b22bb9e56a0d4a45d0cd8eea1093290d9cfc7230b70ea9cf4cd85b06584619b; retrieved 2026-09-16T05:51:01.792Z.