SEA89FA182 · Piper PA-28-151
Skyway Air Service Piper PA-28-151 · Accident: in flight encounter with weather on approach
From Reno Tahoe International Airport (RNO) to Portland International Airport (PDX)
Event
- NTSB case
- SEA89FA182
- 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-28-151
- 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
- CGIWO
- Operator
- Skyway Air Service
- Onboard fatalities
- Unknown
- Route
- From Reno Tahoe International Airport (RNO), Reno, NVTo Portland International Airport (PDX), Portland, 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
- Approach
- 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); 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, not maintained
- Pilot in command › Stall, inadvertent
- Pilot in command › VFR flight into imc, continued
Approximate · Estimated position: the centre of Bridal Veil, OR, the place the record names. Not the accident site.
NTSB narrative
THE NON-INSTRUMENT RATED PLT (RECENTLY CERTIFIED IN CANADA AS A PVT PLT) RCVD A WX BRIEFING FM A FSS & FILED A VFR FLT PLAN TO PORTLAND, OR. HE WAS BRIEFED ON MOD TURBC, LGT TO MOD ICING, MOUNTAIN OBSCURATIONS & MARGINAL VFR TO IFR CEILINGS AT THE DESTINATION. ALSO, HE WAS ADVISED THAT VFR WAS NOT RECOMMENDED. WHEN THE FLT WAS ABOUT 20 MI EAST OF PORTLAND ARPT, THE PILOT CONTACTED ATC & WAS ADVISED TO MAINTAIN VFR AT 2000 FT FOR LNDG STRAIGHT-IN AT PORTLAND. ABOUT 2 MIN LATER, HE RPRTD HE WAS DSCNDG TO 1200 FT TO REMAIN VFR. SHORTLY THEREAFTER, HE ENCOUNTERED WX & INITIATED A CLIMB IN IMC. HOWEVER, DURING THE CLIMB, THE ACFT STALLED, THEN DESCENDED OUT OF CONTROL UNTIL IMPACT WITH TREES AT 1200 FT MSL. ABOUT 9 MI WEST AT THE TROUTDALE ARPT (ELEV 36 FT), THE 1518 PDT WX WAS IN PART: 1200 FT OVC, 3 MI VIS WITH MOD RAIN, WIND FROM 230 DEG AT 6 KTS.
Probable cause
VFR FLIGHT BY THE PILOT INTO INSTRUMENT METEOROLOGICAL CONDITIONS (IMC), AND HIS FAILURE TO MAINTAIN ADEQUATE AIRSPEED, WHICH RESULTED IN A STALL. FACTORS RELATED TO THE ACCIDENT WERE: THE ADVERSE WEATHER CONDITIONS, THE PILOT'S LACK OF INSTRUMENT EXPERIENCE, AND POSSIBLE SPATIAL DISORIENTATION.
Verbatim NTSB analysis and probable cause from the NTSB dataset
Sources
NTSB record SEA89FA182
- Event ID
- 20001213X29488
- Case number
- SEA89FA182
- 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: ec1e8657bc0eb72a65f77a946a8b42251b279268285a779ec808909f88c0f9b3; retrieved 2026-09-21T15:48:36.237Z.