Mercy Flight Beech C90 accident
Beech C90 · Accident: loss of control in flight on approach
From Rogue Valley International-Medford Airport (MFR) to an unrecorded destination
Event
- NTSB case
- SEA89FA154
- 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
- Charter & commuter
- 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
Beech C90
- Aircraft type
- Beechcraft 90
- 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
- N25ST
- Operator
- Mercy Flight
- Onboard fatalities
- Unknown
- Route
- From Rogue Valley International-Medford Airport (MFR), Medford, ORTo not recorded
- 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 135: Air Taxi & Commuter
- 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 · VFR pattern final
- 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
- Loss of control in flight
- 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 › Airspeed(vso), not maintained
- Pilot in command › Go-around, not performed
- Pilot in command › Stall, inadvertent
Approximate · Coordinates as recorded by the NTSB; no uncertainty radius is established.
NTSB narrative
WITNESSES HEARD THE AIRPLANE CIRCLE TWICE BEFORE THE APPROACH. A FOG BANK HAD JUST ROLLED INTO THE AREA AND VISIBILITY WAS REDUCED TO APPRX 1 MILE WITH THE BASES AT 200 TO 300 FEET. THE AIRPLANE WAS OBSERVED EMERGING FROM THE FOG IN A STEEP LEFT TURN AND DESCENDING RAPIDLY; RIGHT OF CENTER LINE, ON A ONE MILE FINAL. THE LEFT BANK ANGLE INCREASED TO NEAR 90 DEGREES WHEN THE NOSE DIPPED DOWN AND THE AIRPLANE COLLIDED WITH A PARKED VEHICLE 150 FEET RIGHT OF CENTERLINE AND 50 FEET SHORT OF THE RUNWAY. UNICOM NOT MANNED. NO RADIO IN AMBULANCE ON GROUND. BASIC WEATHER DATA SHOWN FROM NORTH BEND, 60 MILES NORTH.
Probable cause
THE PILOT'S FAILURE TO INITIATE A GO-AROUND AFTER EMERGING FROM A FOG BANK ON A SHORT FINAL WHICH RESULTED IN INADEQUATE AIRSPEED AND A STALL. CONTRIBUTING TO THE ACCIDENT WAS THE PILOT'S POOR JUDGEMENT IN ATTEMPTING THE VFR APPROACH IN IMC CONDITIONS.
Verbatim NTSB analysis and probable cause from the NTSB dataset
Sources
NTSB record SEA89FA154
- Event ID
- 20001213X29251
- Case number
- SEA89FA154
- 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: b4747ea1b61768feced68fefb11e06e0f6b522e446a7a068a2238ed70db242b7; retrieved 2026-09-18T14:08:22.243Z.