Here’s why a floatplane pilot crashed after trying to land near home on Lake Steilacoom
A floatplane crashed in the driveway of a Lakewood home in 2023 after its pilot flew over his home and then aborted a landing on Lake Steilacoom. The crash came after the pilot thought there might be a problem with the plane’s landing gear, according to a government report issued June 26. The plane failed to regain enough altitude before it collided with trees.
In its final analysis of the May 9, 2023 crash, the National Transportation Safety Board (NTSB) said the pilot of the Aviat Aircraft Husky A-1C-180 received a cockpit warning that the plane’s nose landing gear used for a landing on solid ground was in the down position instead of in the up (retracted) position for a water landing.
Floatplanes use pontoons for water landings. Some have wheels, making them able to land on water and land. Nose landing gear on a Husky must be in the up position for a safe water landing.
“The pilot and passenger reported they visually confirmed that the landing gear were up and the corresponding blue lights on the gear position indicator panel were illuminated, indicating all the gear were up during the normal approach for a water landing,” the report states. “About 2 to 3 ft above the water, the Landing Gear Advisory System (LGAS) gave an aural “CHECK GEAR” advisory, indicating a landing gear mismatch with the terrain.”
The pilot then enacted a “go-around” or aborted landing but couldn’t avoid trees, the report said.
The plane crashed adjacent to a home in the 11200 block of Greystone Drive SW, about 600 feet from the lake. The aircraft quickly caught fire. The passenger got out, but the pilot couldn’t free himself. The home owners helped the passenger extract the pilot, according to previous reporting by The News Tribune.
One man was airlifted to a hospital, and the second was taken by ambulance to a hospital. Neither had life-threatening injuries. The plane was destroyed.
The NTSB report said the agency couldn’t find any malfunctions with the plane, and its landing gear was in the up position.
The two men had departed the Olympia airport and were planning to overfly the pilot’s home on Lake Steilacoom and land on the lake, according to the NTSB. The report noted that if a different approach (over a bridge) had been taken, the plane would have had 1,260 more feet of water distance.
The pilot obtained his airplane single-engine sea rating in February 2023 and purchased the Husky a little more than a month before the accident, the NTSB said. He had 37 hours of flight experience in the make and model.
The pilot’s flight instructor told the NTSB he had flown with the pilot in the plane for about 30 hours, providing instruction for his airplane single-engine sea rating and to ferry the plane.
The instructor said the nose gear was hard to see in the Husky, and the warning system could often be a distraction to a pilot. He stated the lake was small and it would be “tight” to pull off a go-around.
