SEA89FA021 · Cessna 335
Cessna 335 · Accident: in flight collision with terrain/water on approach
From Southwest Washington Regional Airport (KLS) to Skykomish State Airport (S88)
Event
- NTSB case
- SEA89FA021
- 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
- 2 · 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
Cessna 335
- Aircraft type
- Cessna 335
- 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
- N2706F
- Operator
- Charles W. Garton · private individual
- Onboard fatalities
- Unknown
- Route
- From Southwest Washington Regional Airport (KLS), Kelso, WATo Skykomish State Airport (S88), Arlington, 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
- Approach · circling (IFR)
- 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
- 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 › IFR procedure, improper
- Pilot in command › Minimum descent altitude, not maintained
Approximate · Coordinates as recorded by the NTSB; no uncertainty radius is established.
NTSB narrative
DRG A NGT ARR, THE PLT WAS VECTORED FOR A LOC RWY 34 APCH. AFTER RCHG THE FINAL APCH FIX/OUTER MARKER (OM), HE WAS CLRD FOR THE APCH. ABT 5 OR 6 MIN LATER, THE ATC CTLR NOTICED THE ACFT WAS APRX 7 MI NW OF THE ARPT, CLIMBING ABV 3000' MSL. MISSED APCH PROCEDURE WAS TO MAKE A LEFT CLIMBING TURN TO 2000', PROCEED BACK TO THE OM & HOLD. WHEN QUERIED, THE PLT SAID THAT HE DID NOT SEE THE RWY. HE REQUESTED ANOTHER APCH & WAS VECTORED BACK TO THE OM, THEN WAS CLRD FOR A 2ND APCH.WITNESSES SAW THE ACFT MAKE A LOW PASS OVER THE RWY AT APRX 150' AGL. THE ARPT ELEV WAS 137'. MIN DSCNT ALT (MDA) FOR THE APCH WAS 600' MSL (900' FOR CIRCLING APCH). AFTER THE LOW PASS, THE ACFT ENTERED A RGT TURN TO THE EAST. (THERE WAS A WELL LIT INDUSTRIAL AREA APRX 1/2 MI EAST OF THE ARPT.) SUBSEQUENTLY, THE ACFT STRUCK TREES & CRASHED AT AN ELEV OF ABT 329. IT CRASHED APRX 2 MI EAST OF THE ARPT WHILE IN A RGT BANK & HDG 117 DEG. ABT 17 MI SOUTH AT EVERETT, THE 1645 WX WAS 100' OBSCD, 1/8 MI VIS WITH FOG; AT 1745, THE EVERETT WX WAS PTLY OBSCD, 5000' SCAT, 1-1/2 MI VIS WITH FOG.
Verbatim NTSB analysis from the NTSB dataset
Sources
NTSB record SEA89FA021
- Event ID
- 20001213X27505
- Case number
- SEA89FA021
- 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 1988-12-03.
- API snapshot SHA-256: da818fad7f939ed8c6581e1fa5da7a2aaece65e44283bcc9c3a11dbfaf07727c; retrieved 2026-09-21T03:27:51.777Z.