SEA98LA070 · Cessna 172N
Cessna 172N · Accident: in flight encounter with weather while maneuvering
From Cle Elum Municipal Airport (S93) to Fall City, WA
Event
- NTSB case
- SEA98LA070
- 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
- 0 · 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 172N
- Aircraft type
- Cessna 172
- 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
- N6468D
- Operator
- Steven W. Klug · private individual
- Onboard fatalities
- Unknown
- Route
- From Cle Elum Municipal Airport (S93), Cle Elum, WATo Fall City, 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
- 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 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); Tree(s)
- 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 › 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 pilot reported that while en route through a mountain pass, the ceiling was higher than what was reported. The pilot continued the flight through the pass, however, the ceiling began to lower and he opted to reverse direction. The pilot made a 180 degree turn to the left, and at the completion of the turn, noted that the clouds had closed in behind him. The pilot stated that he started another 180 degree turn to the right, and during this turn, entered the clouds. The pilot stated that he was about 150 degrees into the second turn when he popped out of the clouds and was within seconds of impacting a steep mountain side. The pilot stated that there was not sufficient room to avoid a collision, and leveled the wings, pulled the throttle off to stall the airplane as if landing, and aim the nose of the airplane between two trees for the collision. The pilot stated that both wings were bent aft from the impact with the trees, however, the collision with the ground was minor. At the time of the accident, the weather reporting facility reported a 300 foot overcast ceiling. The pilot reported that there were no mechanical failures or malfunctions with the airplane at the time of the accident.
Probable cause
The pilot's continued VFR flight into IMC conditions and his failure to maintain clearance from terrain. Clouds and mountainous terrain were a factor.
Verbatim NTSB analysis and probable cause from the NTSB dataset
Sources
NTSB record SEA98LA070
- Event ID
- 20001211X10191
- Case number
- SEA98LA070
- 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: c26c8733a82543369da458b5eef52de68a2da4c4a390a9792bbd1ad7d1020dc4; retrieved 2026-09-22T17:49:07.352Z.