SEA89LA164 · Cessna 182
Evergreen Flying Club Cessna 182 · Accident: loss of control in flight en route
From Grant County International Airport (MWH) to Renton Municipal Airport (RNT)
Event
- NTSB case
- SEA89LA164
- 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
Cessna 182
- Aircraft type
- Cessna 182
- 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
- N44888
- Operator
- Evergreen Flying Club
- Onboard fatalities
- Unknown
- Route
- From Grant County International Airport (MWH), Moses Lake, WATo Renton Municipal Airport (RNT), Renton, 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
- En route · 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
- Loss of control in flight
- 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 › Flight controls, improper use of
Approximate · Estimated position: the centre of Lester, WA, the place the record names. Not the accident site.
NTSB narrative
THE PILOT ENCOUNTERED CLOUDS WITH TURBULENCE AND TRACE MIXED ICING WHILE ON AN IFR FLIGHT ACROSS THE CASCADE MTNS. THE ACFT WAS OBSERVED OFF COURSE AND ASSIGNED ALTITUDE BY THE ARTCC CONTROLLER, WHO ASSIGNED THE FLIGHT A BLOCK ALTITUDE CLEARANCE. THE PILOT REPORTED HE WAS NOT ABLE TO MAINTAIN ALTITUDE DUE TO TURBULENCE. THE ACFT ENTERED A DESCENT AND IMPACTED TREES AT 4200 FT MSL. PASSENGERS REPORTED THE PILOT WAS MAKING FULL CONTROL MOVEMENTS LEFT AND RIGHT, FORE AND AFT, AND THAT THE AIRCRAFT BECAME INVERTED DURING DESCENT. A WITNESS ON THE GROUND REPORTED LIGHT RAIN BEFORE THE ACCIDENT AND CLEAR SKIES JUST AFTER.
Probable cause
THE PILOT'S LOSS OF CONTROL OF THE AIRCRAFT DUE TO HIS IMPROPER USE OF THE AIRCRAFT FLIGHT CONTROLS. CONTRIBUTING FACTORS IN THE ACCIDENT WERE THE MODERATE TURBULENCE AND TRACE MIXED ICING IN CLOUDS.
Verbatim NTSB analysis and probable cause from the NTSB dataset
Sources
NTSB record SEA89LA164
- Event ID
- 20001213X29494
- Case number
- SEA89LA164
- 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 1989-09-05.
- API snapshot SHA-256: 10bd29962c31e810fa3dfab572d4a3b73c14a991b06a1ff6a41f6e29e99d4963; retrieved 2026-09-22T00:02:50.604Z.