SEA93FA084 · Piper PA-23-250
Piper PA-23-250 · Accident: in flight collision with terrain/water en route
From Portland Troutdale Airport (TTD) to Corvallis Municipal Airport (CVO)
Event
- NTSB case
- SEA93FA084
- 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
- 4 · 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-23-250
- Aircraft type
- Piper PA-23
- 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
- N63888
- Operator
- Ryan, Lawrence J. · private individual
- Onboard fatalities
- Unknown
- Route
- From Portland Troutdale Airport (TTD), Portland, ORTo Corvallis Municipal Airport (CVO), CORVALIS, 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 · climb to 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 collision with terrain/water
- 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
Approximate · Coordinates as recorded by the NTSB; no uncertainty radius is established.
NTSB narrative
THE AIRCRAFT DEPARTED THE TROUTDALE AIRPORT ON A DARK NIGHT. AFTER TAKEOFF, THE PILOT PROCEEDED ALONG A COURSE THAT TOOK THE AIRCRAFT TOWARD RISING TERRAIN. IT EVENTUALLY IMPACTED TREES ON MOUNTAINOUS TERRAIN DURING A CLIMBING RIGHT TURN. THE RIGHT TURN WAS BRINGING THE HEADING OF THE AIRCRAFT TOWARD A COURSE WHICH WOULD HAVE BEEN MORE CONSISTENT WITH A ROUTE TO THE INTENDED DESTINATION. IMPACT OCCURRED AT AN ELEVATION OF ABOUT 4200 FEET. ABOUT 30 MILES NORTHWEST AT THE DEPARTURE AIRPORT (ELEVATION 35 FEET), THE 2146 WEATHER WAS IN PART: 3500' BROKEN, 15 MILES VISIBILITY, WIND FROM 270 DEGREES AT 8 KNOTS.
Probable cause
FAILURE OF THE PILOT TO MAINTAIN PROPER CLEARANCE (AND/OR ALTITUDE) FROM MOUTAINOUS TERRAIN. FACTORS RELATED TO THE ACCIDENT WERE: DARKNESS, CLOUDS, LOW CEILINGS, AND THE HIGH (MOUNTAINOUS) TERRAIN IN THE AREA OF THE ACCIDENT SITE.
Verbatim NTSB analysis and probable cause from the NTSB dataset
Sources
NTSB record SEA93FA084
- Event ID
- 20001211X12038
- Case number
- SEA93FA084
- 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 1993-03-29.
- API snapshot SHA-256: c3fbd0669c9e592ea1b85d893546de38cf9d3463c64fc0cbb9bd4195a6270d7d; retrieved 2026-09-21T00:39:07.776Z.