SEA96FA168 · Beech D35
Beech D35 · Accident: loss of control in flight while maneuvering
From Chamberlain USFS Airport (U79) to Johnson Creek Airport (3U2)
Event
- NTSB case
- SEA96FA168
- 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
- 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
Beech D35
- Aircraft type
- Beechcraft 35
- 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
- N2161D
- Operator
- Unknown
- Onboard fatalities
- Unknown
- Route
- From Chamberlain USFS Airport (U79), CHAMBERLAIN, IDTo Johnson Creek Airport (3U2), YELLOW PINE, 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 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
- Maneuvering
- 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
- Loss of control in flight
- 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
- Stall/spin
- 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 › Airspeed, not maintained
- Pilot in command › Stall/spin, inadvertent
Approximate · Coordinates as recorded by the NTSB; no uncertainty radius is established.
NTSB narrative
The pilot departed from a remote mountain airstrip along with the pilots of two other airplanes. Clear, calm, daylight conditions prevailed. The airplanes flew in the vicinity of one-another about 9,200 feet msl. The accident pilot then radioed that he was going to turn to the right, and he disappeared from view. He then radioed that he was going to change frequencies to the destination airport. The airplane never arrived at its destination, and was reported missing. It was found, intact and burned, five days later in a remote valley about 9 miles north of the destination airport at an elevation of about 8,400 feet msl. The pilot had reported no problems with the airplane either before or during the flight. Evidence was found that indicated the airplane had impacted in a flat spin, while power was applied to the engine. No preimpact mechanical deficiencies were found. The 80-year-old pilot was familiar with the airplane and the terrain. He had not reported any problems with his health, and no history of cardiovascular disease was found.
Probable cause
failure of the pilot to maintain adequate airspeed, while maneuvering in mountainous terrain, which resulted in a stall/spin and collision with terrain.
Verbatim NTSB analysis and probable cause from the NTSB dataset
Sources
NTSB record SEA96FA168
- Event ID
- 20001208X06354
- Case number
- SEA96FA168
- 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 1996-07-23.
- API snapshot SHA-256: 6b1fe8ccbdbcd29a161b3858ef8f51a4b87a7cd5f51bb6e62dbc24547bea3bae; retrieved 2026-09-20T23:16:06.214Z.