SEA95FA137 · Beech A36
Beech A36 · Accident: in flight collision with terrain/water en route
From O39 · Port Townsend, WA to Eugene Airport (EUG)
Event
- NTSB case
- SEA95FA137
- 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
- 2 · 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
- Instrument Meteorological Cond
Beech A36
- Aircraft type
- Beechcraft 36
- 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
- N20239
- Operator
- Unknown
- Onboard fatalities
- Unknown
- Route
- From O39 · Port Townsend, WATo Eugene Airport (EUG), Eugene, OR
- 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 · 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
- 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
- Visual flight rules (VFR) flight into instrument meteorological conditions (IMC)
- 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 › Clearance, not maintained
- Pilot in command › VFR flight into imc, continued
Approximate · Coordinates as recorded by the NTSB; no uncertainty radius is established.
NTSB narrative
DURING A VFR CROSS COUNTRY FLIGHT, THE PILOT HAD CONTACTED APPROACH CONTROL AND ADVISED THE CONTROLLER THAT HE WAS UNFAMILIAR WITH THE AREA AND REQUESTED VECTORS. THE CONTROLLER RESPONDED TO THE PILOT BY INFORMING HIM TO REMAIN VFR AND UTILIZE HIS OWN NAVIGATION. RADAR DATA INDICATES THAT THE AIRPLANE WAS HEADING TOWARD MOUNTAINOUS TERRAIN, AT A LEVEL ALTITUDE, AND 153 KNOTS WHEN THE TARGET WAS LOST NEAR THE MOUNTAINS. WRECKAGE DOCUMENTATION INDICATES THAT THE AIRPLANE COLLIDED WITH THE MOUNTAINOUS TERRAIN AT A HIGH SPEED AND ON THE APPROXIMATE HEADING AND ALTITUDE AS THE LAST RADAR TARGET. THE WRECKAGE WAS LOCATED AT THE 3,200-FOOT LEVEL OF A MOUNTAIN. A WITNESS IN THE AREA REPORTED THAT THE MOUNTAINS WERE COMPLETELY OBSCURED WITH CLOUDS AND VISIBILITY WAS LIMITED. NO EVIDENCE WAS FOUND TO INDICATE A MECHANICAL FAILURE OR MALFUNCTION.
Probable cause
THE PILOT'S CONTINUED VFR FLIGHT INTO INSTRUMENT METEOROLOGICAL CONDITIONS, AND HIS FAILURE TO MAINTAIN CLEARANCE FROM THE TERRAIN. FACTORS IN THE ACCIDENT WERE THE MOUNTAINS AND THE CLOUDS.
Verbatim NTSB analysis and probable cause from the NTSB dataset
Sources
NTSB record SEA95FA137
- Event ID
- 20001207X03806
- Case number
- SEA95FA137
- 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 1995-06-21.
- API snapshot SHA-256: acba00d64ddd66b8760e7faee064db3b4e8c0d8312cd9dcec2708efc02e83457; retrieved 2026-09-20T23:44:05.261Z.