Flight 966 · Beech E18S
Beech E18S · Accident: in flight collision with object on approach
From King County International Airport - Boeing Field (BFI) to Bert Mooney Airport (BTM)
Event
- NTSB case
- SEA95FA043
- 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
- 1 · 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
- Instrument Meteorological Cond
Beech E18S
- Aircraft type
- Beechcraft 18
- 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
- N250RP
- Operator
- Unknown
- Onboard fatalities
- Unknown
- Route
- From King County International Airport - Boeing Field (BFI), Seattle, WATo Bert Mooney Airport (BTM), MT
- 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
- 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 object
- Also codedOther events the NTSB coded in the sequence, such as a wire strike after a loss of power. Flight Findings uses them for its kinds of event. Glossary
- Tree(s)
- 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 › IFR procedure, not followed
- Pilot in command › Proper altitude, not maintained
Approximate · Estimated position: the centre of Butte, MT, the place the record names. Not the accident site.
NTSB narrative
WHILE PERFORMING AN ILS APPROACH AT NIGHT AND IN IMC, THE AIRPLANE COLLIDED WITH TREES IN MOUNTAINOUS TERRAIN PRIOR TO THE IAF. THE MDA PRIOR TO THE IAF IS 10,600 FEET. THE DESCENT ALTITUDE AT THE OM IS 7,713 FEET. THE WRECKAGE WAS LOCATED UNDER THE LOCALIZER PATH AT AN ELEVATION OF 7,600 FEET. DAMAGE TO TREE TOPS ALONG THE WRECKAGE DISTRIBUTION PATH INDICATES THAT THE AIRPLANE TRAVELLED THROUGH THE TREES ON A LEVEL PLANE UNTIL CONTACT WITH THE GROUND APPROXIMATELY 300 FEET INTO THE PATH. LIGHT SNOW WAS FALLING AT THE TIME OF THE ACCIDENT AND VISIBILITY WAS DETERIORATING DUE TO FOG. DURING THE POST CRASH INVESTIGATION, THERE WAS NO EVIDENCE FOUND TO INDICATE A MECHANICAL FAILURE OR MALFUNCTION.
Probable cause
THE PILOT'S FAILURE TO FOLLOW THE IFR PROCEDURE BY NOT MAINTAINING THE PROPER ALTITUDE PRIOR TO THE INITIAL APPRAOCH FIX. FACTORS TO THE ACCIDENT WERE DARK NIGHT CONDITIONS AND A LOW CEILING.
Verbatim NTSB analysis and probable cause from the NTSB dataset
Sources
NTSB record SEA95FA043
- Event ID
- 20001207X02913
- Case number
- SEA95FA043
- 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 1995-01-27.
- API snapshot SHA-256: 1d3f18eae80141d70405d67980a40afc2f7acb0a167e0d15fa835235a8b5a6d7; retrieved 2026-09-18T13:44:11.500Z.