SEA97FA105 · Cessna 182
Cessna 182 and Piper PA-28R-200 · Accident: midair collision en route
Event
- NTSB case
- SEA97FA105
- 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
- Visual Meteorological Cond
Aircraft 1 · Cessna 182
- Aircraft type
- Cessna 182
- 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
- N5434B
- Operator
- Keith E. Mcarthur · private individual
- Onboard fatalities
- Unknown
- Route
- From Ogden Hinckley Airport (OGD), Ogden, UTTo Salt Lake City International Airport (SLC), Salt Lake City, UT
- 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
- Midair collision
- DamageDestroyed: beyond practical repair. Substantial: damage that affects the structure, performance or handling and normally needs major repair. Minor: less than that. Glossary
- Destroyed
Aircraft 2 · Piper PA-28R-200
- Aircraft type
- Piper PA-28
- 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
- N5270T
- Operator
- Unknown
- Onboard fatalities
- Unknown
- Route
- From Ogden Hinckley Airport (OGD), Ogden, UTTo Salt Lake City International Airport (SLC), Salt Lake City, UT
- 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
- Midair collision
- 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 › Preflight planning/preparation, inadequate
- Pilot in command › Visual lookout, inadequate
- Pilot of other aircraft › Preflight planning/preparation, inadequate
- Pilot of other aircraft › Visual lookout, inadequate
Approximate · Coordinates as recorded by the NTSB; no uncertainty radius is established.
NTSB narrative
The pilot of the Cessna 182, N5434B, called departing as a flight of two behind the Piper PA-28R-200, N5270T, and was cleared by tower to depart as a flight of two. The passenger in the Piper reported that shortly before the two aircraft collided, he observed the high-wing Cessna 45 degrees aft and right of the low-wing Piper, well low, but then lost sight of the Cessna and did not regain sight of it before the collision. The line of sight from the Cessna to the sun just before the collision was computed to be approximately at the Cessna's 9:30 position, 65 degrees above the horizon, with the line of sight from the Cessna to the Piper at about the Cessna's 10:30 position and well high. The Piper pilot reported that at the time of the collision, he was looking at opposite direction traffic in front of and above the Piper. The Cessna's empennage separated and the Cessna crashed. The Piper was able to return to the departure airport and land. The Piper pilot reported that the Cessna pilot made no prior arrangements with him to fly in formation.
Probable cause
Inadequate prior arrangements for formation flight by the pilot-in-command of the Cessna 182, N5434B, and his subsequent failure to see-and-avoid the Piper PA-28R, N5270T. Factors were: the Cessna pilot's visibility of the Piper impaired by the sun; restricted visibility for both aircraft due to low wing/high wing formation configuration; and the Piper pilot's attention diverted to other traffic.
Verbatim NTSB analysis and probable cause from the NTSB dataset
Sources
NTSB record SEA97FA105
- Event ID
- 20001208X08011
- Case number
- SEA97FA105
- 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: 206122c86eaf9612501e4486f56fbc87d2df11305a1688d487a77fcf7532c0dc; retrieved 2026-09-20T22:58:10.998Z.