28 Aug 2012: CESSNA 172 N — Silverwing Flight Services

28 Aug 2012: CESSNA 172 N — Silverwing Flight Services

No fatalities • Sand Point, ID, United States

Probable cause

A deer strike during the landing flare. Contributing to the accident was the airport’s lack of any deer incursion prevention measures, such as an airport perimeter fence.

— NTSB Determination

Accident narrative

The certified flight instructor (CFI) and the student pilot had conducted a night visual flight rules instructional flight and were returning to their home, non-towered airport. The student pilot set up for landing on runway 1, and according to the CFI, they looked carefully for wildlife on and near the runway throughout the approach and flare, and did not observe any. During the flare, a deer ran onto the runway from the grass adjacent to the left runway edge, and struck or was struck by the left horizontal stabilizer. The pilots maintained control of the airplane, and the touchdown and rollout were uneventful. The stabilizer was substantially damaged, and the pilots were uninjured. According to the CFI, this was the third deer strike at that airport in as many years. The Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) Airport/Facility Directory stated that wildlife was present on and in the vicinity of the airport, and the CFI reported that a similar message was normally contained in the airport's AWOS (automated weather observing system) radio broadcast. NTSB discussions with the airport manager and personnel from the FAA revealed that deer are a known problem at the airport, and that efforts are underway to approve, fund, and install an airport perimeter fence no sooner than approximately fall 2014. Discussions with United States Department of Agriculture (USDA) Wildlife Management Division personnel revealed that the local office of the USDA was willing and able to provide direct technical assistance to the airport to explore and implement deer hazard mitigation strategies in the interim.

Contributing factors

  • cause Contributed to outcome
  • factor Contributed to outcome

Conditions

Weather
VMC, vis 10sm

Loading the flight search…

What you can do on Flight Finder

  • Search flights between any two airports with live fares.
  • By aircraft — pick a plane model (e.g. Boeing 787, Airbus A350) and see every route it flies from your origin.
  • Route map — click any airport worldwide to explore its destinations, or draw a radius to find nearby airports.
  • Global aviation safety — aviation accident database, 5,200+ records since 1980, with map and rankings by aircraft and operator.
  • NTSB safety feed — recent U.S. aviation accidents and incidents from the official NTSB CAROL database, updated daily.

Frequently asked questions

How do I search flights by aircraft type on FlightFinder?

Pick an aircraft model — Boeing 737, Airbus A320, A380, Boeing 787 Dreamliner and more — enter your origin airport, and FlightFinder shows every route that plane flies from there with live fares.

Which aircraft types can I filter by?

We support Boeing 737/747/757/767/777/787, the full Airbus A220/A319/A320/A321/A330/A340/A350/A380 family, Embraer E170/E175/E190/E195, Bombardier CRJ and Dash 8, and the ATR 42/72 turboprops.

Is FlightFinder free to use?

Search and schedules are free. Pro ($4.99/month, $39/year, or $99 one-time lifetime) unlocks the enriched flight card — on-time stats, CO₂ per passenger, amenities, live gate & weather — plus My Trips with push alerts.

Where does the route data come from?

Live schedules come from Amadeus, AeroDataBox and Travelpayouts. Observed routes (which aircraft actually flew a given city pair) are crowdsourced from adsb.lol ADS-B data under the Open Database License.