SEA90FA149 · Piper PA-22-150
Piper PA-22-150 · Accident: on ground/water collision with terrain/water during initial climb
From WA32 to S13 · MARTHA'S LAKE, WA
Event
- NTSB case
- SEA90FA149
- 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
- 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-22-150
- Aircraft type
- Piper PA-22
- 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
- N9978D
- Operator
- Unknown
- Onboard fatalities
- Unknown
- Route
- From WA32To S13 · MARTHA'S LAKE, WA
- 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
- Initial climb
- 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
- On ground/water 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 › Preflight planning/preparation, misjudged
Approximate · Coordinates as recorded by the NTSB; no uncertainty radius is established.
NTSB narrative
THE PILOT OF THE MODIFIED PIPER PA-22 WAITED AT THE AIRSTRIP UNTIL THE TEMPERATURE COOLED AS MUCH AS POSSIBLE BEFORE DUSK. HE STATED THAT HE USED FULL FLAPS FOR CLIMBOUT, A TECHNIQUE WHICH HE BELIEVED TO BE RECOMMENDED BY THE OWNER'S HANDBOOK. THE AIRCRAFT CRASHED APPROXIMATELY 1/2 MILE FROM THE DEPARTURE END OF THE AIRSTRIP.
Probable cause
THE PILOT'S MISJUDGEMENT IN PREFLIGHT PLANNING WHEN DEPARTING TOWARD RISING TERRAIN. CONTRIBUTING FACTORS IN THIS ACCIDENT WERE HIS DECISION TO ATTEMPT A CLIMB-OUT WITH FULL FLAPS EXTENDED, AND THE MINIMAL PERFORMANCE DATA AVAILABLE TO HIM UPON WHICH HE COULD BASE HIS DECISION.
Verbatim NTSB analysis and probable cause from the NTSB dataset
Sources
NTSB record SEA90FA149
- Event ID
- 20001212X23820
- Case number
- SEA90FA149
- 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 1990-07-30.
- API snapshot SHA-256: cd96aebe7d630618971470412170ce9905653d46da11d70d87ec831324413031; retrieved 2026-09-21T02:25:20.794Z.