SEA97FA178

The newly certificated private pilot, a recent high school graduate, had two friends from his high school aboard. Before the accident, the aircraft was seen maneuvering at low airspeed and altitude in the vicinity of one of the passengers' houses. A flight instructor-qualified witness reported that at about 40 feet above ground level, the aircraft entered a steep turn of more than 80 degrees bank, and that the nose then dropped steeply and the aircraft crashed. The crash site was 3/8 mile east of the front seat passenger's house. This passenger's brother reported that he was talking with the front seat passenger on a cell phone at the time of the accident. He stated that the passenger instructed his brother to come out on the deck of the house because they were going to fly over. When the brother told the passenger he had not seen the aircraft, the passenger told his brother to wait on the deck while the aircraft turned around and came back over. During an on-scene examination of the aircraft wreckage, investigators found no evidence of preimpact aircraft mechanical problems.

History of flight

On July 28, 1997, approximately 1434 Pacific daylight time, a Cessna 172M, N80222, crashed into a residential cul-de-sac in Clackamas, Oregon, a suburb of Portland. The airplane was substantially damaged, and of the three occupants on board, the recently certificated private pilot-in-command and one passenger were killed and one passenger was seriously injured. The seriously injured passenger subsequently died of her injuries on August 28, 1997, 31 days after the accident. There were no injuries to personnel on the ground, and the only damage to property on the ground was to trees and a maintained lawn in the median of the cul-de-sac. The pilot had rented the airplane from Northwest Aircraft Rental (d/b/a Aurora Aviation) of Aurora, Oregon, and the flight was operated under 14 CFR 91. The flight had departed from Aurora State Airport in Aurora, approximately 13 nautical miles southwest of the accident site. Visual meteorological conditions prevailed and no flight plan had been filed.

A fuel slip obtained from Aurora Aviation indicated that the aircraft was refueled at Aurora State Airport at 1406, 28 minutes before the initial report of the accident to emergency dispatch personnel. Some witnesses in the accident area reported that before the crash, they observed the airplane performing maneuvers in the accident area such as decelerating in a 20-degree nose-up attitude, and descending from 800 to 1000 feet above ground level (AGL) to 200 to 300 feet AGL in an uncoordinated turn. Several witnesses further reported that immediately prior to the crash, they observed the aircraft flying slowly at very low altitude (a certificated flight instructor [CFI] who witnessed the accident estimated the aircraft's altitude above the ground as about 40 feet) over the area in the vicinity of the accident site, with some witnesses reporting that they called, or contemplated calling, local authorities to report the low-flying aircraft. Witnesses reported that immediately prior to the crash, they observed the airplane bank steeply (the CFI witness estimated the bank angle of this turn as "in the excess [sic] of eighty degrees"), and that it then dropped steeply nose low and crashed.

The front-seat passenger's brother reported that he was talking to his brother (the front-seat passenger) on a cellular telephone at the time of the accident. The passenger's brother stated that the front-seat passenger told him to come out onto the deck because they were going to fly over. He stated that the passenger then asked him if he could see the airplane occupants waving to him. The brother reported that when he replied he did not, the passenger then told him to wait while they turned around and came back over. The brother told investigators that the last thing he heard on the telephone was a scream, and that he then lost the connection to the passenger. The brother reported that he heard no changes in engine noise and no sounds resembling warning horns during the conversation, and did not indicate that the passenger ever reported any problems with the aircraft during the course of the conversation. The accident site was approximately 3/8 mile east of the front-seat passenger's house.

No communications between N80222 and air traffic control during the accident flight were reported. Investigators attempted to obtain radar data on the accident aircraft from Portland Terminal Radar Control (TRACON) in order to reconstruct the aircraft's flight path during the accident sequence, but Portland TRACON reported that there was no radar data available for the accident aircraft. (NOTE: Portland International Airport, the primary airport for a Class C airspace area and approximately 10 nautical miles north-northwest of the crash site, is at an elevation of 27 feet above mean sea level [MSL]; high terrain rising to approximately 1,050 feet above MSL is situated generally between Portland International and the crash site, approximately 8 1/2 nautical miles from the airport.)

Investigators were unable to interview the surviving passenger before she died, due to the severity of her injuries.

The accident occurred during the hours of daylight at 45 degrees 25.2 minutes North and 122 degrees 32.7 minutes West.

Personnel information

The pilot was 19 years old and had recently completed his first year as a student at Embry-Riddle Aeronautical University, Daytona Beach, Florida. The pilot had completed his private pilot training under Embry-Riddle's flight training syllabus in the Socata TB-9 Tampico aircraft. The pilot's first flight was logged on October 28, 1996, his first solo was January 11, 1997, and he had received his private pilot certificate on May 21, 1997, approximately two months before the accident. Training records furnished by Embry-Riddle indicated that the pilot correctly answered a question on a pre-solo written examination, dated November 6, 1996, relating to 14 CFR 91 minimum altitude requirements over congested areas, but incorrectly answered a question on the definition of "careless or reckless operation", giving as his answer "Aircraft operations other than that for the purpose of navigation." The pilot was at home visiting family, which lives in Clackamas, at the time of the accident. The pilot's logbook indicated that he had 86.8 hours total flight time, including 35.5 hours as pilot-in-command, and that he first flew the Cessna 172 on June 17, 1997, approximately six weeks prior to the accident. He had logged six flights in the Cessna 172, for a total of 17.8 hours in that aircraft.

The two passengers on the flight, both 17 years old, also lived in Clackamas and were to have entered their senior year at Clackamas High School, from which the pilot had graduated. The passengers were friends of the pilot from high school.

Aircraft information

In a review of the engine logbooks conducted at the operator's facilities, the accident aircraft's engine, a Lycoming O-320-E2D, was found to have 2,172.7 hours since its last major overhaul at the time of the accident. Lycoming service instructions recommend a 2,000 hour time between overhauls (TBO) interval for this engine. The operator stated that due to the engine being beyond its recommended TBO interval, the accident aircraft was not being utilized in air taxi service under Aurora Aviation's 14 CFR 135 operator certificate. In a post-accident examination of the engine conducted at the accident site, investigators found no evidence of an actual mechanical malfunction of the engine.

Compared to the Socata TB-9, the Cessna 172 is of similar weight and power (2,337 pounds maximum gross weight and 160 brake horsepower [BHP] for the TB-9, versus 2,300 pounds and 150 BHP for the Cessna 172), but has a larger wing area (174 square feet for the Cessna 172, versus 128.1 square feet for the TB-9.) As such, at maximum gross weight the Cessna 172 has a lower wing loading (13.2 pounds per square foot for the Cessna 172, 18.24 pounds per square foot for the TB-9, but slightly less favorable power loading than the TB-9 (14.6 pounds per BHP for the TB-9, versus 15.3 pounds per BHP for the Cessna 172.) The Cessna 172's power-off, flaps-up stall speed at 0 degrees bank angle and maximum gross weight ranges from 50 knots calibrated airspeed (KCAS) at the most rearward center of gravity (CG) to 53 KCAS at the most forward CG, while the TB-9's is 58 knots.

At 60 degrees of bank and maximum gross weight, the Cessna 172's flaps-up, power-off stall speed ranges from 71 KCAS at the most rearward CG to 75 KCAS at the most forward CG.

According to a Cessna estimate of the aircraft's weight and balance at the time of the accident, computed from estimated passenger and fuel weights, the aircraft's gross weight at the time of the accident was approximately 2,123 pounds, with a moment of 81,688 inch-pounds. This combination is within the aircraft's allowable weight and balan