SEA06CA081
2006-04-22 · Malad City, Idaho, United States · None · 1 aircraft · Status: Completed
Airport MLD
N679SP has since been reassigned. It is now registered to a different aircraft (VAN'S AIRCRAFT RV-9A), which was not involved in this event.
Aircraft involved
Probable cause & findings
The private pilot's improper touchdown point during landing and the certified flight instructors delayed remedial action. Ditches and fences were factors in the accident.
Factual narrative
On April 22, 2006, at 2145 mountain standard time, a Cessna 172S, N679SP, sustained substantial damage subsequent to a runway overrun during landing at the Malad City Airport (MLD), Malad City, Idaho. The airplane was being operated by Air Center of Salt Lake, West Jordon, Utah, as an instructional cross-county flight under the provisions of Title 14, CFR Part 91. The private pilot receiving instruction (pilot "A") and the commercial pilot/certified flight instructor (pilot "B") were not injured in the accident. Visual meteorological conditions prevailed for the night cross-country flight that originated from Salt Lake City Municipal 2 Airport (U42), Salt Lake City, Utah, at 2035. A flight plan had been filed, however it had not been activated. In a written statement dated April 27, the private pilot, who was at the controls during the accident, stated that after a high approach the airplane touched down at a point where it was "...too late to execute a missed approach, because we had used so much of the runway. We both slammed on the brakes and started skidding off the end of the runway. We went through a barbed wire fence and hit a ditch. Hitting the ditch launched the aircraft over a road. We went through another fence and hit another ditch, flipping the aircraft upside down." In a written statement dated April 29, the commercial pilot/certified flight instructor reported that the airplane was too high during the approach and just as he was going to instruct the pilot to go-around "...the wheels touched down and the tires started to lockup." Both pilot statements are contained in the public docket associated with this report. In a written statement the private pilot, who was at the controls during the accident, stated that after a high approach the airplane touched down at a point where it was "too late to execute a missed approach, because we had used so much of the runway. We both slammed on the brakes and started skidding off the end of the runway. We went through a barbed wire fence and hit a ditch. Hitting the ditch launched the aircraft over a road. We went through another fence and hit another ditch, flipping the aircraft upside down." The commercial pilot/certified flight instructor reported that the airplane was too high during the approach and just as he was going to instruct the pilot to go-around "...the wheels touched down and the tires started to lockup." Source: NTSB Aviation Accident Database (Pre-2008 Archive) Retrieved: 2026-02-12
Verbatim from NTSB's published report. Source file
NTSB_2006_SEA06CA081.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 (go-around). All research papers
- NASA NTRS 2025 · Conference Paper A Training Study to Improve Monitoring During A Go-Around
As part of an FAA program to improve go-around (GA) safety, we were asked to determine if we could improve the performance of the Pilot Monitoring (PM) during a GA maneuver.
- Flight Safety Foundation 2024 · FSF / AeroSafety World Go-Around Safety Forum Findings
Foundation Go-Around Safety Forum technical findings — examines why pilots fail to execute go-arounds when criteria are met (stabilized approach gate not met, energy state out of envelope, traffic con…
- Semantic Scholar 2022 · Article (Journal of Safety Research) Go-around accidents and general aviation safety.
INTRODUCTION Changes in General Aviation (GA) accident rates, specifically in the go-around phase, are examined by comparing the number of accidents, the proportion of fatal accidents, and the proport…
- Semantic Scholar 2021 · Article (Aerospace) Classification and Analysis of Go-Arounds in Commercial Aviation Using ADS-B Data
Go-arounds are a necessary aspect of commercial aviation and are conducted after a landing attempt has been aborted. It is necessary to conduct go-arounds in the safest possible manner, as go-arounds …
- NASA NTRS 2021 · Accepted Manuscript (Version with final changes) Go-Around Criteria Refinement for Transport Category Aircraft
Presently, airline pilots are trained to go around if, when lower than 500 ft above the ground, they are outside of a handful of parameters such as airspeed, position, and rate of descent.
- NASA NTRS 2019 · Conference Paper Validation of Proposed Go-Around Criteria Under Various Environmental Conditions
This paper evaluates the effects of environmental conditions on touchdown performance under varying approach states and validates proposed go-around criteria developed using data from a previously con…