SEA88LA068 · Bellanca 7KCAB
Bellanca 7KCAB · Accident: in flight encounter with weather en route
From A15S · LESTER, WA to Tacoma Narrows Airport (TIW)
Event
- NTSB case
- SEA88LA068
- 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
Bellanca 7KCAB
- Aircraft type
- Bellanca 7
- 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
- N86820
- Operator
- Unknown
- Onboard fatalities
- Unknown
- Route
- From A15S · LESTER, WATo Tacoma Narrows Airport (TIW), Tacoma, 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
- 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
- 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 › Weather forecast, disregarded
Approximate · Estimated position: the centre of Palmer, WA, the place the record names. Not the accident site.
NTSB narrative
WHILE ON A VFR CROSS COUNTRY FLIGHT THE PILOT ENCOUNTERED INSTRUMENT METEOROLOGICAL CONDITIONS ALONG HIS ROUTE. THE AIRCRAFT WAS NOT INSTRUMENT EQUIPPED, EVEN THOUGH THE PILOT IS INSTRUMENT RATED. THE PILOT HAD TO MAKE TWO PRECAUTIONARY LANDINGS PRIOR TO THE ACCIDENT TO AWAIT IMPROVING WEATHER. ALTHOUGH WEATHER BRIEFERS HAD TOLD THE PILOT THAT VFR WAS NOT RECOMMENDED ALONG HIS PROPOSED ROUTE OF FLIGHT, DUE TO LOW CEILINGS AND LOW VISIBILITY, THE PILOT ELECTED TO CONTINUE THE FLIGHT. AT ABOUT 23 MILES FROM THE PILOTS PROPOSED DESTINATION, HE ENCOUNTERED LOW CEILINGS AND LOW VISIBILITIES WITH LIGHT SNOW SHOWERS. A FORCED LANDING WAS MADE ONTO A LOGGING ROAD. THE AIRCRAFT STRUCK A PILE OF LOGS DURING THE LANDING ROLLOUT.
Verbatim NTSB analysis from the NTSB dataset
Sources
NTSB record SEA88LA068
- Event ID
- 20001213X25359
- Case number
- SEA88LA068
- 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 1988-03-28.
- API snapshot SHA-256: aa06920199e5953e9fcbfd7774eb0f7cf06c87037e756e122a5318a64c530d98; retrieved 2026-09-21T16:12:27.395Z.