Aerowest Aviation Cessna T210L accident
Cessna T210L · Accident: in flight collision with terrain/water en route
From 3S2 · Aurora, OR to Penticton Airport (CYYF)
Event
- NTSB case
- SEA90FA122
- 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
- 5 · 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 T210L
- 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
- N59291
- Operator
- Aerowest Aviation
- Onboard fatalities
- Unknown
- Route
- From 3S2 · Aurora, ORTo Penticton Airport (CYYF), PENTICTON,CAN
- 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
- 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
- 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
- Visual flight rules (VFR) flight into instrument meteorological conditions (IMC)
- 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 › VFR flight into imc, continued
Approximate · Coordinates as recorded by the NTSB; no uncertainty radius is established.
NTSB narrative
DURING A VFR FLIGHT, THE PILOT REPORTED TO ATC FLIGHT FOLLOWING THAT A HIGHER ALTITUDE WAS NECESSARY TO REMAIN VFR. ATC APPROVED AND INQUIRED IF THE PILOT HAD MOUNT RAINIER IN SIGHT. THE PILOT REPLIED NEGATIVE BUT THAT THEY WERE VFR ON TOP. ABOUT 15 MIN LATER, AND 5 MI SSW OF MOUNT RAINIER, ATC INQUIRED IF THE PILOT HAD MOUNT RAINIER IN SIGHT. THERE WAS NO RESPONSE TO THIS OR THE NEXT TWO ATC TRANSMISSIONS. WHEN THE PILOT FINALLY RESPONDED TO THE FOURTH TRANSMISSION, ATC ADVISED THAT THE FLIGHT MAKE AN IMMEDIATE LEFT TURN TO A HEADING OF 310, AND TO VERIFY UNLESS MOUNT RAINIER WAS IN SIGHT. THE PILOT ACKNOWLEDGED THE TRANSMISSION. SHORTLY THEREAFTER THE AIRPLANE FLEW INTO MOUNT RAINIER AT THE 12,700-FT LEVEL. A CLIMBER, ON THE MOUNTAIN AT THE THE TIME OF THE ACCIDENT, REPORTED THAT VISIBILITY WAS 50 YARDS WITH HIGH WINDS.
Probable cause
THE PILOT'S CONTINUATION OF VFR FLIGHT INTO INSTRUMENT METEOROLOGICAL CONDITIONS.
Verbatim NTSB analysis and probable cause from the NTSB dataset
Sources
NTSB record SEA90FA122
- Event ID
- 20001212X23816
- Case number
- SEA90FA122
- 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: f6523b51861534fd1854041055a1180f8cd5465e02a52ea56ec86582b246aef8; retrieved 2026-09-18T14:05:58.082Z.