20260723012799A

This was a scheduled flight from kenmore's lake union seaplane base in seattle Washington to roche harbor in the san juan islands (kenmore air flight 140). At 0700 the pilot pre-flighted the aircraft and conducted a preflight weather briefing using the foreflight application on his phone. The briefing indicted that there would be convective activity over the san juan islands that was forecast to begin at approximately 1200 and continue for about an hour before dissipating.

The pilot conducted a preflight safety briefing for the passengers, and calculated weight and balance information for the planned flight. The pilot recalled that the flight was under max gross takeoff weight, and the center of gravity was within the aircraft’s operating envelope.

The flight north was uneventful until approximately 20 miles south of cattle pass in the san juan islands. The pilot observed a line of thunderstorms and heavy rain passing over the san juan islands. As a result, he elected to avoid the developing area of thunderstorms over much of the san juan islands by flying past orcas island to the east and then flying over sucia island and approaching roche harbor from the north.

Approximately 10 miles after passing the sucia islands, he observed lightning strikes in the developing thunderstorm near roche harbor. He determined that the safest course of action was to execute a 180-degree turn and return to the sucia islands, beach the aircraft, and wait out the thunderstorm on the ground. He initially elected to land to the southeast into fox cove. However, when he was approximately a mile northwest of little sucia island, he noticed dark areas on the water, indicating strong, gusty surface winds, and potential for low level turbulence and windshear on the approach to fox cove. He then determined that it was safest to land straight to the east into shallow bay. However, after executing a left turn to align for a landing in shallow bay, he became concerned by the number of boats in shallow bay, and determined that he would be unable to conduct a safe landing in shallow bay.

He elected to perform a go-around, with a planned climbing left hand turn to avoid the bay and the boats. At the time he commenced the go-around he estimated there was sufficient distance from the shore to pass over the shoreline at least 400 feet above the surface. However, when he applied power to the approximately 60 PSI location on the power lever, the aircraft didn’t accelerate as quickly as he anticipated, or experienced on go-arounds he’d performed in the past. He glanced at the engine’s torque meter, and observed that the engine was developing less than 40 PSI of torque, despite his continued advancement of the power lever.

During the level off, the aircraft’s airspeed continued to decline, and he experienced a left wing drop, as well as a stall. He immediately corrected the stall by reducing angle of attack, but the left float subsequently struck the water and the aircraft veered to the right. The float contacted the water with an insufficient distance to stop prior to the rocks on the north side of the entrance to shallow bay. After he touched the water and it became clear that they would strike the rocks, he applied full reverse pitch to try and slow the aircraft as much as possible.

The aircraft struck the rocks, and almost immediately caught fire. He assisted the right forward passenger in evacuating the aircraft, and then noticed all but one of the rear passengers had evacuated the aircraft. He assisted the one remaining passenger in evacuating the aircraft, and then watched as the aircraft became completely engulfed in flames. Numerous boaters came to assist him and the passengers in small boats after they departed the aircraft.