SEA96FA175 · Mooney M20E
Mooney M20E · Accident: in flight encounter with weather en route
From Friday Harbor Airport (FHR) to Rogue Valley International-Medford Airport (MFR)
Event
- NTSB case
- SEA96FA175
- 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
- Unknown
Mooney M20E
- Aircraft type
- Mooney M20
- 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
- N9360M
- Operator
- Unknown
- Onboard fatalities
- Unknown
- Route
- From Friday Harbor Airport (FHR), Friday Harbor, WATo Rogue Valley International-Medford Airport (MFR), Medford, 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 encounter with weather
- 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 › Aircraft control, uncontrolled
- Pilot in command › Spatial disorientation
- Pilot in command › VFR flight into imc, continued
Approximate · Coordinates as recorded by the NTSB; no uncertainty radius is established.
NTSB narrative
The noninstrument-rated pilot wanted to return home to manage a bowling tournament. Since marginal visual flight rules (VFR) conditions were forecast for the following day, the pilot decided to leave that evening. After takeoff, flight service informed the pilot that weather conditions were deteriorating on the flight's planned route, but the pilot replied he would continue toward his destination. The aircraft subsequently passed east of Bremerton (which was reporting a 600-foot overcast ceiling) at 2,900 to 3,000 feet. Two minutes later, the aircraft entered a descending left turn to the east. In this turn, the aircraft's speed increased above never-exceed speed and its descent rate increased to 2,400 feet per minute before it disappeared from radar. Four seconds later, the pilot called air traffic control (ATC) for help, but no further transmissions were received. The aircraft crashed 1/2 mile northeast of the last radar position. Witnesses reported that the aircraft impacted in about a 45-degree descent angle, that the engine sounded normal, and that there was low cloud cover in the area.
Probable cause
The noninstrument-rated pilot's continuation of VFR flight into instrument meteorological conditions which led to pilot spatial disorientation and loss of control of the aircraft. Factors were: pilot self-induced pressure, night conditions, low ceilings, and the pilot's lack of total instrument time.
Verbatim NTSB analysis and probable cause from the NTSB dataset
Sources
NTSB record SEA96FA175
- Event ID
- 20001208X06611
- Case number
- SEA96FA175
- 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: 0c026b2c0746a0294bf24f6da46a3954cfd9048ccff57a0c14701d6d4ed31ae5; retrieved 2026-09-20T23:14:41.462Z.