WPR18LA055 · Kelley Derrick/Leza AIRCAM
Fly Seaplanes Kelley Derrick/Leza AIRCAM · Accident: inflight upset on approach
From Astoria Regional Airport (AST) to Newport Municipal Airport (ONP)
Event
- NTSB case
- WPR18LA055
- 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
Kelley Derrick/Leza AIRCAM
- Aircraft type
- Kelley Derrick/leza AIRCAM
- 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
- N959M
- Operator
- Fly Seaplanes
- Onboard fatalities
- Unknown
- Route
- From Astoria Regional Airport (AST), Astoria, ORTo Newport Municipal Airport (ONP), Newport, OR
- Aircraft age
- About 10 years (built 2007)
- 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
- Inflight upset
- 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 › Conditions/weather/phenomena
- Personnel issues › Task performance
Approximate · Coordinates from the NTSB case API, not marked as estimated; no uncertainty radius is established.
NTSB narrative
The pilot of the twin-engine, experimental, amateur-built airplane was landing with a right crosswind. The pilot turned onto final approach for the runway and the airplane banked left and began to descend. The pilot attempted to correct, but the bank and heading change persisted, the airplane's descent rate increased, and the airplane impacted trees and the ground short of the runway threshold. The airplane sustained substantial damaged to both wings. Examination of the airframe and engines did not reveal any pre-impact mechanical anomalies that would have precluded normal operation. Based on the available evidence, it is likely that the airplane encountered a crosswind during final approach, and the pilot was unable to regain control before impact with trees and terrain.
Probable cause
The pilot’s failure to maintain airplane control while on final approach for landing in crosswind conditions, which resulted in a collision with trees.
Verbatim NTSB analysis and probable cause from the NTSB dataset
Sources
NTSB record WPR18LA055
- Event ID
- 20171223X21524
- Case number
- WPR18LA055
- 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, cause areas. 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: 70d1591d6b3bdb1b6215eb61cede24900b212ce4a5aadc0d757c8af3441c59fc; retrieved 2026-09-16T06:14:00.028Z.