SEA92LA031 · Piper PA-24-250
Johnson Sales and Service Piper PA-24-250 · Accident: in flight collision with terrain/water on approach
From O6U · Jackpot, NV to an unrecorded destination
Event
- NTSB case
- SEA92LA031
- 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
Piper PA-24-250
- Aircraft type
- Piper PA-24
- 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
- N6408P
- Operator
- Johnson Sales and Service
- Onboard fatalities
- Unknown
- Route
- From O6U · Jackpot, NVTo 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 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
- 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 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
- Substantial
Cause areas
- Pilot in command › Altitude, improper
- Pilot in command › In-flight planning/decision, poor
- Pilot in command › Missed approach, not performed
Approximate · Coordinates as recorded by the NTSB; no uncertainty radius is established.
NTSB narrative
THE PILOT OF A PIPER PA-24 IMPACTED THE TERRAIN WHILE ATTEMPTING TO EXECUTE AN ILS APPROAH DURING WEATHER CONDITIONS THAT WERE BELOW MINIMUMS. THE PILOT, WHO HAD DEPARTED WITHOUT FIRST GETTING A WEATHER BRIEFING, STATED THAT HE WAS LOW ON FUEL. HE HAD ALREADY ATTEPMTED THE APPROACH TWICE, BEFORE LOOKING FOR AN ALTERNATE IN THE SURROUNDING AREA. SINCE HE WAS UNABLE TO LOCATE AN ALTERNATE WITHIN FUEL RANGE, HE ELECTED TO ATTEMPT THE APPROACH, EVEN THOUGH HE KNEW IT WAS BELOW MINIMUMS. THE PILOT DESCENDED BELOW DECISION HEIGHT, AN EVENTUALLY IMPACTED THE TERRAIN.
Probable cause
THE PILOT'S POOR IN-FLIGHT DECISION, FAILURE TO PERFORM A MISSED APPROACH, AND IMPROPER ALTITUDE. FACTORS INCLUDE POOR PREFLIGHT PLANNING/PREPARATION, AND WEATHER CONDITIONS BELOW APPROACH MINIMUMS.
Verbatim NTSB analysis and probable cause from the NTSB dataset
Sources
NTSB record SEA92LA031
- Event ID
- 20001212X18668
- Case number
- SEA92LA031
- 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 1991-12-27.
- API snapshot SHA-256: 6a17c06f1be7a91fcc4676bbc74344fbf58c0854648b8f486c8e87ba23184fa9; retrieved 2026-09-21T15:10:34.381Z.