SEA96FA024 · Beech C24R
Beech C24R · Accident: in flight collision with terrain/water on approach
From Lewiston Nez Perce County Airport (LWS) to Bozeman Yellowstone International Airport (BZN)
Event
- NTSB case
- SEA96FA024
- 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 C24R
- Aircraft type
- Beechcraft 24
- 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
- N3729T
- Operator
- Unknown
- Onboard fatalities
- Unknown
- Route
- From Lewiston Nez Perce County Airport (LWS), Lewiston, IDTo Bozeman Yellowstone International Airport (BZN)
- 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
- Approach · IFR initial 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 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
- Substantial
Cause areas
- Pilot in command › Altitude/clearance, not maintained
- Pilot in command › IFR procedure, not followed
Approximate · Coordinates as recorded by the NTSB; no uncertainty radius is established.
NTSB narrative
The flight was on an instrument flight rules (IFR) flight plan and had been cleared by air traffic control (ATC) for an instrument landing system (ILS) approach. The aircraft owner, along with the flight instructor, who completed the pilot's instrument training as well as his checkout in the accident aircraft, stated that they had instructed the pilot not to fly the accident aircraft in IFR conditions. The airplane was flown at an altitude of 13,000 feet for 32 minutes before commencing the approach, and it was not equipped with supplemental oxygen or cabin pressurization. The pilot failed to follow the specified ground track for the approach, and the airplane impacted mountainous terrain about 13-1/2 nautical miles north-northeast of the airport in heavy snow conditions. The accident site was approximately 15-1/2 nautical miles beyond the point where a turn onto the localizer was specified on the approach procedure. The airport did not have a control tower or approach control radar, and the airplane was not in radar contact with ATC at the time of the accident. A hunter near the accident site saw an airplane fly over his position at low altitude in heavy snowfall. He heard a loud metallic 'clank' about 20 to 30 seconds after the airplane disappeared from his view. Also, he noted the time on his watch, which corresponded to the estimated time of the accident.
Probable cause
failure of the pilot to follow the specified approach track (proper IFR procedure), and his associated failure to maintain altitude or clearance from mountainous terrain. Factors relating to the accident were: the pilot's failure to abide by the aircraft owner's (dispatch) procedures, heavy snowfall, mountainous terrain, and possible pilot impairment from altitude hypoxia.
Verbatim NTSB analysis and probable cause from the NTSB dataset
Sources
NTSB record SEA96FA024
- Event ID
- 20001207X04922
- Case number
- SEA96FA024
- 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: 7272555594e4a6ea29cb97e14ea564e22126b9691e1a02aab186adbcf1a4cbce; retrieved 2026-09-20T23:31:02.049Z.