Cessna 172P N38GF

Summary

On 11 April 2000 at about 21:39 local time, a Cessna 172P registered N38GF was involved in an accident near Seattle, Washington, United States. One person was on board and one had minor injuries. The aircraft was substantially damaged. The NTSB has published a probable cause for this accident; it is quoted in full below.

Date

11 April 2000 at 21:39

Classification

Accident

Location

Seattle, Washington, United States

Nearest airport

King Co Intl-Boeing Field (BFI)

Coordinates

47.5408, -122.3109

Aircraft

Cessna 172P

Registration

N38GF

Category

Airplane

Engines

1

Operator

Not recorded

Operating rule

Part 91: General Aviation

Purpose of flight

Personal

Phase of flight

Not recorded

Aircraft damage

Substantial

Weather

VMC

Light

Day

NTSB number

SEA00LA067

1 person had minor injuries.

The pilot's failure to attain proper alignment with the landing runway, and her failure to maintain proper glide path for the landing runway, resulting in an encounter with vortex turbulence from a preceding heavy aircraft landing on a parallel runway and subsequent loss of aircraft control. Factors included the pilot's lack of total flying experience, and crosswind conditions conducive to a vortex turbulence encounter.

Quoted verbatim from the NTSB record. This site does not paraphrase or interpret it.

Read the full NTSB narrative

The accident aircraft was in a right-hand traffic pattern for runway 31R, approaching for a touch-and-go landing just after a Boeing 767 (B-767) landed on parallel runway 31L (the two runways are spaced about 360 feet apart.) The wind was from 290 degrees magnetic at 7 to 12 knots, yielding a cross-runway wind component of approximately 2 to 4 knots in the 31L-to-31R direction during the accident time frame. Three on-duty tower controllers reported that the aircraft overshot final for runway 31R and lined up on the runway 31L final approach course behind the landing B-767, and that the accident aircraft was low on its approach for runway 31R. The airplane subsequently rolled to an extreme bank attitude and crashed, coming to rest in the runway 31L displaced threshold area. The pilot had 173.7 hours total pilot time, including 69.9 hours as pilot-in-command.

Quoted verbatim from the NTSB record.