SEA89LA030 · Cessna 205
Cessna 205 · Accident: in flight encounter with weather en route
From an unrecorded airport to Eugene Airport (EUG)
Event
- NTSB case
- SEA89LA030
- 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
- Instrument Meteorological Cond
Cessna 205
- Aircraft type
- Cessna 205
- 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
- N8403Z
- Operator
- Raymund R. Wilbur III · private individual
- Onboard fatalities
- Unknown
- Route
- From not recordedTo Eugene Airport (EUG), Eugene, OR
- 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 · 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 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)
- 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 › Aircraft control, not maintained
- Pilot in command › Spatial disorientation
- Pilot in command › VFR flight into imc, initiated
Approximate · Coordinates as recorded by the NTSB; no uncertainty radius is established.
NTSB narrative
THE STUDENT PILOT TOOK OFF ON A SOLO FLIGHT FROM AN UNCONTROLLED AIRPORT AT COTTAGE GROVE IN MARGINAL WEATHER CONDITIONS. SHORTLY AFTER TAKEOFF, HE TRANSMITTED TO EUGENE TOWER (WHICH WAS APPROXIMATELY 15 MILES NORTH) THAT HE HAD ENCOUNTERED 'WHITE-OUT' CONDITIONS. SUBSEQUENTLY, APPROACH CONTROL IDENTIFIED THE AIRCRAFT'S POSITION ON RADAR AND ATTEMPTED TO VECTOR THE AIRCRAFT TO EUGENE AIRPORT. HOWEVER, THE STUDENT WAS UNABLE TO HOLD A HEADING OR ALTITUDE. SUBSEQUENTLY, THE AIRCRAFT ENTERED A STEEP DESCENT AND CRASHED. THE 1450 PST WEATHER AT EUGENE WAS: 2000 FT SCATTERED, 4000 FT OVERCAST WITH 10 MILES VISIBILITY. A PILOT WITNESS ESTIMATED THE WEATHER AT COTTAGE GROVE WAS: 800 FT BROKEN CEILING, VISIBILITY ONE MILE WITH RAIN AND FOG.
Verbatim NTSB analysis from the NTSB dataset
Sources
NTSB record SEA89LA030
- Event ID
- 20001213X27512
- Case number
- SEA89LA030
- 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: 12b9ba5b0dd21dd1d1dca2da3cb4a4b5efc5f363d5020c6f0b2bdf5665328817; retrieved 2026-09-21T03:26:34.900Z.