SEA91FA170 · Piper PA-28-140
Piper PA-28-140 · Accident: in flight collision with terrain/water en route
From U59 · Driggs, ID to U42 · Salt Lake City, UT
Event
- NTSB case
- SEA91FA170
- 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
- Visual Meteorological Cond
Piper PA-28-140
- Aircraft type
- Piper PA-28
- 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
- N501FL
- Operator
- Jim Fields
- Onboard fatalities
- Unknown
- Route
- From U59 · Driggs, IDTo U42 · Salt Lake City, UT
- 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 › Compensation for wind conditions, improper
- Pilot in command › In-flight planning/decision, poor
Approximate · Coordinates as recorded by the NTSB; no uncertainty radius is established.
NTSB narrative
EVEN THOUGH A LOCAL CFI ATTEMPTED TO DISCOURAGE HIM FROM DOING SO, THE PIPER PA-28-140 PILOT DEPARTED THE UNCONTROLLED AIRPORT, WITH THE AIRCRAFT NEAR CERTIFIED GROSS WEIGHT, WHEN THE DENSITY ALTITUDE WAS OVER 10,000 MSL. WIDELY SCATTERED TOWERING THUNDERSTORMS WERE BUILDING IN THE AREA, AS THE PILOT ATTEMPTED TO CLIMB THROUGH A NARROW MOUNTAIN VALLEY. WINDS AT THE TIME OF THE ACCIDENT WERE REPORTED TO BE GREATER THAN 20 KNOTS, WITH HIGHER GUSTS AND RAPIDLY CHANGING DIRECTION. JUST AFTER PASSING THE ENTRANCE TO THE VALLEY THE AIRCRAFT IMPACTED THE TERRAIN AT 7000 FEET MSL.
Probable cause
THE PILOT'S POOR INFLIGHT DECISION AND HIS IMPROPER COMPENSATION FOR WIND. FACTORS WERE RISING, MOUNTAINOUS TERRAIN; HIGH, GUSTY WINDS; AND A HIGH DENSITY ALTITUDE.
Verbatim NTSB analysis and probable cause from the NTSB dataset
Sources
NTSB record SEA91FA170
- Event ID
- 20001212X17686
- Case number
- SEA91FA170
- 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: aa12ea5a51d92fe259f313c2d3718c3443654da3fd14193c7b49c666103a071b; retrieved 2026-09-21T01:42:17.413Z.