SEA94LA231 · Cessna 172G
Cessna 172G · Accident: in flight collision with terrain/water en route
From Packwood Airport (55S) to Seattle Paine Field International Airport (PAE)
Event
- NTSB case
- SEA94LA231
- 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
- General aviation
- 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
Cessna 172G
- Aircraft type
- Cessna 172
- 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
- N4628L
- Operator
- Unknown
- Onboard fatalities
- Unknown
- Route
- From Packwood Airport (55S), PACKWOOD, WATo Seattle Paine Field International Airport (PAE), Everett, WA
- 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 91: General Aviation
- 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
- En route · climb to cruise
- 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
- In flight collision with terrain/water
- DamageDestroyed: beyond practical repair. Substantial: damage that affects the structure, performance or handling and normally needs major repair. Minor: less than that. Glossary
- Destroyed
Cause areas
- Pilot in command › In-flight planning/decision, improper
- Pilot in command › Proper altitude, not maintained
Approximate · Estimated position: the centre of Paradise, WA, the place the record names. Not the accident site.
NTSB narrative
THE NEWLY RATED PRIVATE PILOT STATED THAT THE AIRPLANE WAS UNABLE TO MAINTAIN SUFFICIENT ALTITUDE TO CROSS A RIDGE. HOWEVER, PASSENGERS AND WITNESSES STATED THE PILOT MAINTAINED VERY LOW ALTITUDE THROUGHOUT THE FLIGHT. PASSENGERS REPORTED THE PILOT TURNED THE AIRPLANE INTO A MOUNTAINOUS DRAINAGE WHERE THE AIRPLANE STRUCK TREES, THEN IMPACTED TERRAIN. THE GRADIENT OF THE TERRAIN WAS DETERMINED TO EXCEED THE CLIMB GRADIENT CAPABILITY OF THE AIRCRAFT.
Probable cause
PROPER ALTITUDE WAS NOT MAINTAINED AND IMPROPER INFLIGHT PLANNING/DECISION. FACTORS TO THE ACCIDENT WERE MOUNTAINOUS/HILLY TERRAIN CONDITIONS AND LACK OF TOTAL EXPERIENCE.
Verbatim NTSB analysis and probable cause from the NTSB dataset
Sources
NTSB record SEA94LA231
- Event ID
- 20001206X02353
- Case number
- SEA94LA231
- 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: investigation status. Values present in the bulk record are kept.
- The date is the local date, which is the same as the UTC date the NTSB stores.
- API snapshot SHA-256: 4a56c88027f8670d4059944b3ff38fe48a18b632c910f9765254153e2fcc4dfa; retrieved 2026-09-21T13:39:12.527Z.