SEA99LA153 · Cessna 210B
Cessna 210B · Accident: in flight collision with object on approach
From ID to an unrecorded destination
Event
- NTSB case
- SEA99LA153
- 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
- Visual Meteorological Cond
Cessna 210B
- 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
- N9740X
- Operator
- David E. Sheldon · private individual
- Onboard fatalities
- Unknown
- Route
- From 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 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 · VFR pattern final
- 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
- Also codedOther events the NTSB coded in the sequence, such as a wire strike after a loss of power. Flight Findings uses them for its kinds of event. Glossary
- Tree(s)
- 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 › Airspeed, inadequate
- Pilot in command › Clearance, not maintained
Approximate · Coordinates as recorded by the NTSB; no uncertainty radius is established.
NTSB narrative
The pilot reported that while on final approach to a private mountain airstrip, the canyon that he was following was narrow, required steep turns to maintain terrain clearance, and that the elevation varied. About one-quarter to one-half mile south of the airstrip, the pilot's visual picture of the approach no longer appeared correct to him in that he felt that he was too low and close to the creek. The pilot retracted the landing gear and applied full power, however, the terrain necessitated a series of steep, approximate 60 degree bank angle turns to maintain terrain clearance, and the rate of climb while performing these turns was near zero feet/min. The pilot stated that because the nose was high and the speed slow; the stall warning horn was sounding. The pilot was unable to maintain altitude and leveled the wings just prior to collision with the trees.
Probable cause
Inadequate airspeed and clearance was not maintained. Mountainous conditions, trees, and an inadequately planned approach were factors.
Verbatim NTSB analysis and probable cause from the NTSB dataset
Sources
NTSB record SEA99LA153
- Event ID
- 20001212X19874
- Case number
- SEA99LA153
- 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: 23bcf7874d9d0cbfbd3aed83a0207e2aa355c9749f72d51e54edba1a99a4e366; retrieved 2026-09-22T14:13:01.747Z.