SEA97FA044 · Piper PA-24-260
Dakota Ridge Aviation Piper PA-24-260 · Accident: loss of control in flight en route
From Billings Logan International Airport (BIL) to Felts Field (SFF)
Event
- NTSB case
- SEA97FA044
- 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
- 3 · 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
Piper PA-24-260
- Aircraft type
- Piper PA-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
- N9080P
- Operator
- Dakota Ridge Aviation
- Onboard fatalities
- Unknown
- Route
- From Billings Logan International Airport (BIL), Billings, MTTo Felts Field (SFF), Spokane, WA
- 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
- Loss of control in flight
- 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 › Incapacitation(anoxia/hypoxia)
Approximate · Coordinates as recorded by the NTSB; no uncertainty radius is established.
NTSB narrative
An ATC controller observed the night IFR flight with the 68-year old pilot deviating south of course then correcting back a little bit before deviating south again. The deviations were as much as 90 degrees, and altitude varied by about 14,400 feet MSL down to 14,000 feet MSL. Then, approximately 10 southeast of Helena, Montana, radar contact was lost in an area of normally good radar coverage. The airplane sustained an in-flight breakup before impacting in hilly terrain. The flight had been cleared to climb to 12,000 feet at 1936; at 2006 the controlller noted that 'I don't know where he's going...he's all over the place....' During on-scene investigation, it was determined that the portable oxygen bottle being carried in the airplane was not being used by the pilot. The pilot was known to fly at altitudes above 12,500 feet, and as high as 17,000 feet, without using oxygen. An autopsy of the pilot revealed atherosclerosis of coronary arteries with 90% stenosis of left anterior descending coronary artery and 90% stenosis of right coronary artery, as well as multiple blunt force injuries.
Probable cause
Pilot incapacitation due to hypoxia. Failure of the pilot to use available oxygen is a factor.
Verbatim NTSB analysis and probable cause from the NTSB dataset
Sources
NTSB record SEA97FA044
- Event ID
- 20001208X07356
- Case number
- SEA97FA044
- 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 1997-01-07.
- API snapshot SHA-256: 33b522660a73f0ed18dab5e170db691c118a8fe802be40f7275af77f17c6486e; retrieved 2026-09-20T23:03:58.695Z.