SEA88FA039 · Beech B23
Beech B23 · Accident: in flight encounter with weather en route
From Great Falls International Airport (GTF) to Pocatello Regional Airport (PIH)
Narrative check · The NTSB narrative appears to contradict this record's departure or destination. Values are shown as recorded, not corrected; compare with the narrative.
Event
- NTSB case
- SEA88FA039
- 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
- 3 · 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
- Unknown
Beech B23
- Aircraft type
- Beechcraft 23
- 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
- CFWET
- Operator
- Unknown
- Onboard fatalities
- Unknown
- Route Possible conflict
- From Great Falls International Airport (GTF), Great Falls, MTTo Pocatello Regional Airport (PIH), Pocatello, ID
- 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 · 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 encounter with weather
- 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); Stall
- 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 › Flight into known adverse weather, attempted
- Pilot in command › Stall
- Pilot in command › VFR flight into imc, continued
Approximate · Coordinates as recorded by the NTSB; no uncertainty radius is established.
NTSB narrative
THE TWO NON INSTRUMENT RATED PILOTS (OWNER/PILOT IN COMMAND AND SECOND PILOT) AS WELL AS A PASSENGER DEPARTED MEDICINE HAT, ALBERTA, CANADA, ON A PLEASURE FLIGHT TO LAS VEGAS, NEVADA. UPON ARRIVAL AT GREAT FALLS, MONTANA, BOTH PILOTS WERE BRIEFED ON THE INTENDED ROUTE OF FLIGHT VIA POCATELLO, IDAHO, AND VFR FLIGHT WAS NOT RECOMMENDED. THE BRIEFER SUGGESTED AN ALTERNATE ROUTING VIA WYOMING. THE OWNER/PILOT IN COMMAND OVERRODE THE SECOND PILOT'S ACCEPTANCE OF THE ALTERNATE ROUTING AND THE AIRCRAFT DEPARTED. APPROACHING POCATELLO ONE OF THE PILOTS RADIOED THAT WEATHER CONDITIONS WERE 'CLOSING IN' ON THE FLIGHT AND A WITNESS IN THE VICINITY OF THE CRASH SITE REPORTED LOW CEILINGS/CLOUDS, FOG, LIGHT SNOW AND REDUCED VISIBILITIES DURING THE LATE MORNING/EARLY AFTERNOON OF THE ACCIDENT. THE AIRCRAFT IMPACTED FROZEN GROUND IN A STEEP NOSE LOW ATTITUDE WITHOUT CRACKING. BREAKING THE ENGINE CRANKCASE AFTER STALLING AT LOW ALT.
Verbatim NTSB analysis from the NTSB dataset
Sources
NTSB record SEA88FA039
- Event ID
- 20001213X24980
- Case number
- SEA88FA039
- 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: cd90d2686161c3366241cbcefc004055d5511810994582f61cd0338f99957522; retrieved 2026-09-21T03:50:05.364Z.