SEA98FA056 · Cessna P210N
Cessna P210N · Accident: in flight collision with terrain/water while maneuvering
From Grant County International Airport (MWH) to Central Cascades Fire and EMS Heliport (OR33)
Event
- NTSB case
- SEA98FA056
- 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
- Instrument Meteorological Cond
Cessna P210N
- Aircraft type
- Cessna 210
- 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
- CGBFM
- Operator
- Unknown
- Onboard fatalities
- Unknown
- Route
- From Grant County International Airport (MWH), Moses Lake, WATo Central Cascades Fire and EMS Heliport (OR33), Boardman, 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
- 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
- In flight collision with terrain/water
- 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 › Clearance, not maintained
- Pilot in command › VFR flight into imc, attempted
Approximate · Coordinates as recorded by the NTSB; no uncertainty radius is established.
NTSB narrative
The flight took off under visual flight rules with an approximate 1,000 foot overcast layer. No flight plan was filed. The route of flight was southbound toward an approximate 2,200 foot mountain ridge line. Witnesses heard the aircraft fly overhead, but could not see the aircraft due to the low overcast layer that obscured the ridge. Another witness reported that he was at the top of the ridge about 20 minutes after the accident. This witness reported that the visibility was about 100 feet with light drizzle. After the overcast lifted several hours later, the wreckage was spotted about 100 feet below the ridge line. On-site investigation determined that the aircraft collided with the mountain on a southerly heading. Wreckage was distributed for approximately 200 feet along a 10 degree upslope. A post crash fire destroyed the cabin and a majority of the wings. Follow-up investigation and engine teardown did not reveal evidence of a mechanical failure or malfunction.
Probable cause
Attempted VFR flight into IMC and terrain clearance was not maintained. A low ceiling was a factor.
Verbatim NTSB analysis and probable cause from the NTSB dataset
Sources
NTSB record SEA98FA056
- Event ID
- 20001211X09776
- Case number
- SEA98FA056
- 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: 43c6bdc8a6b2e087842bd0dd7add527f2ca710395eb5498ac37a353dee1a99ba; retrieved 2026-09-20T22:38:34.588Z.