Spokane Airways Cessna T210R accident
Cessna T210R · Accident: in flight collision with object on approach
From Joslin Field Magic Valley Regional Airport (TWF) to an unrecorded destination
Event
- NTSB case
- SEA93FA020
- 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
- 1 · 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
- Charter & commuter
- 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 T210R
- 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
- N7381U
- Operator
- Spokane Airways
- Onboard fatalities
- Unknown
- Route
- From Joslin Field Magic Valley Regional Airport (TWF), Twin Falls, IDTo not recorded
- 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 135: Air Taxi & Commuter
- 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
- Approach · IFR final approach
- 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 object
- 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 › Proper altitude, not maintained
Approximate · Coordinates as recorded by the NTSB; no uncertainty radius is established.
NTSB narrative
DURING A NIGHT TIME VOR/DME APPROACH FOR LANDING IN FOGGY CONDITIONS, THE AIRPLANE COLLIDED WITH A FIFTEEN FOOT HIGH MOVEABLE IRRIGATION SYSTEM LOCATED IN AN OPEN FIELD APPROXIMATELY TWO AND A HALF MILES EAST OF THE AIRPORT. RADAR DATA INDICATES THAT THE FLIGHT WAS ESTABLISHED ON THE APPROACH AND AT A PROPER ALTITUDE AT THE FINAL APPROACH FIX. TWO RADAR TARGETS AFTER THE FIX INDICATE THAT THE FLIGHT DESCENDED BELOW THE PUBLISHED MINIMUM ALTITUDE AND COLLIDED WITH THE IRRIGATION SYSTEM. POST CRASH INSPECTION DID NOT REVEAL ANY MECHANICAL FAILURES OR MALFUNCTIONS.
Probable cause
PROPER ALTITUDE WAS NOT MAINTAINED. FACTORS TO THE ACCIDENT WERE: FOG, DARK NIGHT CONDITIONS, AND IMPROPER IFR PROCEDURES.
Verbatim NTSB analysis and probable cause from the NTSB dataset
Sources
NTSB record SEA93FA020
- Event ID
- 20001211X16096
- Case number
- SEA93FA020
- 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 1992-11-10.
- API snapshot SHA-256: 3509464ce1cc733a7ddef0992a3aff805f6895340f550f82a2a67ba34d5b93d0; retrieved 2026-09-18T13:55:47.142Z.