Event SEA00LA016

Factual narrative

On October 24, 1999, at 1408 Pacific daylight time, an Aero Commander 680, N1231, registered to Washington Aeroprogress, Inc., Seattle, Washington, sustained substantial damage after a loss of directional control during the landing roll at Bermerton airport, Bermerton, Washington. The flight instructor and his multi-engine student were uninjured. The flight initiated at Boeing Field, Seattle, Washington as a 14 CFR 91 instructional flight about one hour before the accident. Visual meteorological conditions prevailed. No flight plan was filed for the flight, and there was no report of an ELT actuating. The pilots were conducting full-stop landing practice, landing on runway 01. The airplane drifted off the runway, struck a taxiway marker, and collapsed the left main landing gear. In a telephone interview, the student acknowledged that he had lost directional control of the airplane during landing. The student pilot asserted that he was the new unregistered owner of the airplane, that the flight instructor was on board as a guest pilot with no pilot responsibilities, and that the airplane was owned and operated by a stateless "protected private foreign company, unlimited conscience objector," under an apostille of the convention de La Haye of October 5, 1961. There was no record of the student pilot holding either a student pilot certificate, pilot's certificate, or airman's medical. The student pilot returned an unsigned NTSB form 6120.1/2; the flight instructor did not return a pilot/operator statement. The student pilot and flight instructor were conducting full-stop landing practice in the multi-engine airplane. The airplane drifted off the runway, struck a taxiway marker, and collapsed the left main landing gear. In a telephone interview, the student acknowledged that he had lost directional control of the airplane during landing. Source: NTSB Aviation Accident Database (Pre-2008 Archive) Retrieved: 2026-02-12