SEA04CA159
2004-07-23 · Sequim, Washington, United States · None · 1 aircraft · Status: Completed
Airport W28
Aircraft involved
Probable cause & findings
Aircraft control not maintained during the landing roll. A factor was the irrigation pipe.
Factual narrative
On July 23, 2004, about 1440 pacific daylight time, a Bellanca 7GCAA, N88373, sustained substantial damage subsequent to a loss of control during landing roll at the Sequim Valley Airport, Sequim, Washington. The airplane was being operated as a visual flight rules (VFR) personal flight under the provisions of Title 14, CFR Part 91, when the accident occurred. The private pilot and passenger were not injured. Visual meteorological conditions prevailed, and no flight plan was filed for the local flight. The flight originated from Port Angeles, Washington, approximately 15 minutes prior to the accident. In a written statement, the pilot reported that after landing on runway 27 the aircraft started [to veer] slightly to the left. He reported that he pressed right rudder to correct and got no response, then tried again with the same result. The pilot stated that he then pressed the right brake, but the airplane continued left at about 30 degrees before going off the runway into the grass. The pilot reported that he then saw an irrigation pipe about 30 feet from the side of the runway. He tried to slow the airplane with both brakes but rotated about another 90 degrees before impacting the pipe, resulting in substantial damage to the right wing. In a previous telephone interview with an NTSB investigator, the pilot reported no anomalies with the aircraft prior to or during the accident fight which would have prevented normal operations. When the aircraft started to veer slightly to the right after landing the pilot pressed the right rudder to correct, got no response, then tried again with the same result. He then pressed the right brake but the airplane continued off the edge of the runway into a grassy area. The airplane subsequently impacted an irrigation pipe causing substantial damage to the right wing. No anomalies with the airplane were detected prior to or during the flight. Source: NTSB Aviation Accident Database (Pre-2008 Archive) Retrieved: 2026-02-12
Verbatim from NTSB's published report. Source file
NTSB_2004_SEA04CA159.txt.
Findings + structured fields enriched from FAA avall.mdb.
Full investigation docket on
data.ntsb.gov ↗.
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Related research
Matched on aircraft type or causal vocabulary (loss of control). All research papers
- Embry-Riddle Scholarly Commons 2025 · Journal article (JAAER) A Scoping Review of Aviation Loss of Control Inflight Research
Loss of control – inflight (LOC-I) contributes to aircraft accidents at unacceptably high rates. Significant industry efforts and research have aimed to improve LOC-I prevention, detection, and recove…
- SKYbrary (Eurocontrol) 2024 · SKYbrary article Loss of Control In-Flight (LOC-I) — SKYbrary Knowledge Base
SKYbrary comprehensive knowledge-base entry on Loss of Control In-Flight — definitions, contributing factors, accident case studies (Air France 447, Colgan 3407), and prevention strategies.
- Semantic Scholar 2024 · Article (International Conference on Networking and Services) Risk Assessment of Loss of Control In-Flight Trajectories for Urban Air Mobility Safety
In Urban Air Mobility (UAM), maintaining a minimum separation between aircraft is a safety requirement, which becomes challenging amidst congested air traffic and off-nominal conditions, such as Loss …
- NTSB Aircraft Accident Reports 2022 · Accident report Loss of Control on Takeoff in Icing Conditions — Citation 560XL
Cessna Citation 560XL fatal takeoff icing accident, March 2018. Investigation of a Citation 560XL loss-of-control takeoff accident in icing conditions.
- Semantic Scholar 2021 · Article (Aviation) ANALYSIS OF GENERAL AVIATION FIXED-WING AIRCRAFT ACCIDENTS INVOLVING INFLIGHT LOSS OF CONTROL USING A STATE-BASED APPROACH
Inflight loss of control (LOC-I) is a significant cause of General Aviation (GA) fixed-wing aircraft accidents. The United States National Transportation Safety Board’s database provides a rich source…
- NASA NTRS 2021 · Presentation Use of Design of Experiments in Determining Neural Network Architectures for Loss of Control Detection
Abstract—We describe empirical methods for selecting a neural network architecture to implement belief state inference on generic commercial transport aircraft.