Salmon Air Taxi Piper PA-34-200T accident
Piper PA-34-200T · Accident: undershoot on approach
From Salt Lake City International Airport (SLC) to ID
Event
- NTSB case
- SEA94LA206
- Event typeAccident: someone killed or seriously injured, or the aircraft substantially damaged (NTSB definition). Incident: an occurrence that affected or could have affected safety, short of that. Glossary
- Accident
- InvestigationHow far the investigation had got when the record was published: preliminary, ongoing, final or completed. Unknown where the source does not say. Glossary
- Completed
- API-reported fatalities
- 0 · all aircraft and ground
- Ground fatalities
- 0
- OperationWhat kind of flying it was, grouped by the rules it flew under: airline (US Part 121), air taxi and commuter (Part 135), general aviation (Part 91 and similar), military or government. Glossary
- Charter & commuter
- WeatherVisual meteorological conditions (VMC): good enough to fly by looking outside. Instrument conditions (IMC): cloud or low visibility, flying by instruments. Glossary
- Visual Meteorological Cond
Piper PA-34-200T
- Aircraft type
- Piper PA-34
- Category
- Airplane
- RegistrationThe aircraft's tail number, such as N12345 or G-ABCD. Registrations are reissued, so the same one years apart can be a different aircraft. Glossary
- N47671
- Operator
- Salmon Air Taxi
- Onboard fatalities
- Unknown
- Route
- From Salt Lake City International Airport (SLC), Salt Lake City, UTTo ID
- Aircraft age
- Not recorded
- Flight rulesThe regulations the flight operated under: in the US, Part 91 (general aviation), Part 121 (airlines), Part 135 (air taxi and commuter) and others; for flights abroad, the NTSB's coarser commercial or non-commercial code. Glossary
- Part 135: Air Taxi & Commuter
- Phase of flightThe stage of the flight when things started to go wrong: standing, taxi, takeoff, initial climb, en route, maneuvering, approach or landing. Glossary
- Approach · VFR pattern final
- First occurrenceThe single coded event the NTSB judges best describes what happened (records from 2008 on). Older records name the first occurrence in the sequence instead. Glossary
- Undershoot
- DamageDestroyed: beyond practical repair. Substantial: damage that affects the structure, performance or handling and normally needs major repair. Minor: less than that. Glossary
- Substantial
Cause areas
- Pilot in command › Distance/altitude, misjudged
Approximate · Coordinates as recorded by the NTSB; no uncertainty radius is established.
NTSB narrative
THE PILOT STATED THAT HE BECAME DISORIENTED DURING THE VFR NIGHT APPROACH WHILE TURNING FROM BASE TO FINAL. HE THOUGHT HE WAS TOO HIGH SO HE INCREASED HIS DESCENT. HE THEN REALIZED HE WAS TOO LOW. THE AIRPLANE IMPACTED TERRAIN ABOUT 1/4 MI SHORT OF THE RUNWAY. THE PILOT STATED THAT HE HAD BEEN ON DUTY FOR 16 HRS ON THE DAY OF THE ACCIDENT, DURING WHICH TIME HE HAD FLOWN ON 4 FLIGHTS FOR A TOTAL OF ABOUT 6-1/2 HRS. A PASSENGER STATED THAT THE PILOT APPEARED TIRED. THE PILOT DID NOT MEET THE NIGHT CURRENCY REQUIREMENTS, AND THE OPERATOR WAS UNAWARE OF THE PILOT'S LACK OF CURRENCY. THE BAGGAGE WAS NOT ADEQUATELY SECURED BY THE PILOT, AND A BAG STRUCK A PASSENGER ON THE BACK OF THE HEAD DURING THE ACCIDENT.
Probable cause
THE PILOT'S FAILURE TO ADEQUATELY JUDGE THE DISTANCE AND ALTITUDE TO THE RUNWAY DURING THE NIGHT VFR APPROACH. FACTORS IN THE ACCIDENT WERE: FATIGUE, LACK OF RECENT NIGHT FLYING EXPERIENCE, THE DARK NIGHT, AND THE OPERATOR'S INADEQUATE SUPERVISION OF THE PILOT.
Verbatim NTSB analysis and probable cause from the NTSB dataset
Sources
NTSB record SEA94LA206
- Event ID
- 20001206X02137
- Case number
- SEA94LA206
- Dataset
- historical-pre2008
- Source SHA-256
- 89e2df6d848e7ab3b42e7d7c7a03ff403303057a26ca04c95b3ea67201c3ce74
Source notes (4)
- Unreviewed is an editorial label, not an investigation status. API-sourced is not report-checked or human-reviewed. Explicit event totals are used without summing aircraft injury tables; onboard allocation is withheld. Unknown values remain unknown. The operation category is mapped from the NTSB-reported FAR part and has not been reviewed.
- Filled from the NTSB case API where the bulk record had no value: local date, investigation status. Values present in the bulk record are kept.
- The date is the local date; the NTSB stores the UTC date 1994-08-07.
- API snapshot SHA-256: a2e67a14bb0f45e8893ed7adf7ffbf173a3a80e6e8e5442da7f4cb1a95a275c5; retrieved 2026-09-18T18:10:44.365Z.