SEA89LA127 · Piper PA-28-180
Airways Sheetmetal Piper PA-28-180 · Accident: in flight encounter with weather while maneuvering
From Spokane International Airport (GEG) to Nanaimo Airport (YCD)
Event
- NTSB case
- SEA89LA127
- 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
Piper PA-28-180
- Aircraft type
- Piper PA-28
- 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
- N56759
- Operator
- Airways Sheetmetal
- Onboard fatalities
- Unknown
- Route
- From Spokane International Airport (GEG), Spokane, WATo Nanaimo Airport (YCD), Nanaimo
- 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
- Maneuvering
- 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
- Stall/mush; Tree(s)
- 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
- Airspeed › Inadequate
- Pilot in command › Altitude, inadequate
- Pilot in command › In-flight planning/decision, improper
Approximate · Coordinates as recorded by the NTSB; no uncertainty radius is established.
NTSB narrative
WHILE ATTEMPTING TO CROSS OVER THE CASCADE MOUNTAINS, THE PILOT ENCOUNTERED CLOUDS, WHICH THE ACFT WOULD NOT BE ABLE TO OUTCLIMB. HE ELECTED TO DESCEND BELOW THE CLOUDS & FOLLOW AN INTERSTATE HIGHWAY THROUGH A PASS. HE INADVERTENTLY ENTERED A BOX CANYON. WHILE MANEUVERING TO REVERSE COURSE, THE AIRCRAFT MUSHED INTO TREES. THE PILOT HAD RECEIVED A PREFLIGHT WEATHER BRIEFING, WHICH INDICATED VFR FLT CONDITIONS IN THE PASS. A WEATHER OBSERVATION STATION (THAT WAS PREVIOUSLY IN THE PASS) HAD BEEN CLOSED BY THE NATIONAL WEATHER SERVICE.
Probable cause
IMPROPER IN-FLIGHT PLANNING/DESCISION BY THE PILOT, WHICH RESULTED IN THE AIRCRAFT ENTERING A BOX CANYON WITH INSUFFICIENT SPEED AND ALTITUDE TO MANEUVER OUT OF THE CONFINED AREA. FACTORS RELATED TO THE ACCIDENT WERE: THE PILOT'S CONTINUED FLIGHT INTO KNOWN ADVERSE WEATHER CONDITIONS AND THE TERRAIN AND WEATHER CONDITIONS.
Verbatim NTSB analysis and probable cause from the NTSB dataset
Sources
NTSB record SEA89LA127
- Event ID
- 20001213X28689
- Case number
- SEA89LA127
- 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: c0264eb669abce2307f217a31e9ff1e4d3195cadd8eca4374c441061a98a29e2; retrieved 2026-09-21T15:53:41.389Z.