SEA92FA041 · Piper PA-23-180
Aviate Air Piper PA-23-180 · Accident: in flight collision with terrain/water en route
From King County International Airport - Boeing Field (BFI) to Shaw Island Trust Heliport (WA33)
Event
- NTSB case
- SEA92FA041
- 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
- 2 · 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-23-180
- 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
- CFDFV
- Operator
- Aviate Air
- Onboard fatalities
- Unknown
- Route
- From King County International Airport - Boeing Field (BFI), Seattle, WATo Shaw Island Trust Heliport (WA33), Lynden, 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
- 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 › Became lost/disoriented, inadvertent
Approximate · Coordinates as recorded by the NTSB; no uncertainty radius is established.
NTSB narrative
THE PILOT OF THE PIPER PA-23-180 DEPARTED THE CONTROLLED FIELD FOR A FLIGHT TO A DESTINATION WHICH WAS APPROXIMATELY THIRTY MINUTES NORTH OF THE DEPARTURE POINT. THE FLIGHT, WHICH HAD BEEN DELAYED FOR WEATHER, DEPARTED AFTER DARK. AT THE TIME OF DEPARTURE, THE PLANNED ROUTE WAS FORECAST TO HAVE OCCASIONAL RAIN SHOWERS AND VARIABLE CEILINGS. AFTER DEPARTURE, THE PILOT OF THE AIRCRAFT HEADED NORTH TOWARD HIS DESTINATION, AND OPENED HIS VFR FLIGHT PLAN. THE AIRCRAFT THEN BEGAN A SLOW RIGHT TURN TO AN EASTERLY HEADING, AND CONTACTED APPROACH CONTROL FOR FLIGHT FOLLOWING. AFTER BEING GIVEN A DISCRETE TRANSPONDER CODE, THE PILOT ADVISED THE CONTROLLER THAT HE WOULD BE PROCEEDING NORTH AT WHATEVER ALTITUDE WOULD KEEP HIM OUT OF THE CLOUDS. BUT, THE AIRCRAFT CONTINUED TO FLY IN AN EASTERLY TO NORTHEASTERLY DIRECTION, AND IMPACTED A MOUNTAIN RIDGE APPROXIMATELY SIX MINUTES AFTER THE INITIAL CONTACT WITH APPROACH CONTROL. PRIOR TO IMPACT THE PILOT DID NOT INDICATE ANY PROBLEMS WITH THE AIRCRAFT, OR WITH NAVIGATION.
Probable cause
THE PILOT BECOMING INADVERTENTLY LOST/DISORIENTED. THE ENVIRONMENTAL CONDITIONS WERE FACTORS IN THE ACCIDENT.
Verbatim NTSB analysis and probable cause from the NTSB dataset
Sources
NTSB record SEA92FA041
- Event ID
- 20001211X14043
- Case number
- SEA92FA041
- 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 1992-01-30.
- API snapshot SHA-256: 5c66718c7991ee28ab23553387feea68bbd160a907e30bee79652e89d2d5779d; retrieved 2026-09-21T01:23:33.723Z.