SEA88FA034 · Cessna 182J
Cessna 182J · Accident: in flight encounter with weather en route
From LNS · Los Banos, CA to Cormorant Heliport (WA05)
Event
- NTSB case
- SEA88FA034
- 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
- 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 182J
- 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
- N2758F
- Operator
- Walter W. Breeden · private individual
- Onboard fatalities
- Unknown
- Route
- From LNS · Los Banos, CATo Cormorant Heliport (WA05), Battle Ground, 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
- 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
- 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
- Induction air control, air filter/screen › Blocked(total)
- Induction air control, air filter/screen › Ice
- Pilot in command › Carburetor heat, delayed
- Pilot in command › Flight into known adverse weather, continued
Approximate · Coordinates as recorded by the NTSB; no uncertainty radius is established.
NTSB narrative
THE RECENTLY CERTIFICATED, NON-INSTRUMENT RATED, PVT PLT FLEW INTO AN AREA OF LOW CEILINGS, LOW VIS, RAIN & SNW W/O FILING A FLT PLAN. NO RECORD OF A WX BRIEFING WAS FND. A SURVIVING PAX RPRTD THAT DRG FLT, THE PLT FLEW INTO CLDS THAT WERE INITIALLY SCATTERED, BUT AS THE FLT CONTD, THE CLDS BCM THICKER & DARKER. THE PAX SAID THEY FLEW INTO 'ICE CLOUDS.'ICE ACCUMULATED ON THE ACFT & THE ENG BGN TO FALTER. RPRTDLY, CARB HEAT WAS APPLIED TOO LATE TO PREVENT ENG STOPPAGE. A DISTRESS CALL WAS MADE AT 1501 PST. SOON THEREAFTER, THE PLT TRANSMITTED THEY WERE 'GOING DOWN' & THEN RADAR & RADIO CTC WERE LOST. THE ACFT COLLIDED WITH TREES ON MTN TERRAIN & CRASHED. THE EMERG LOCATOR BCN (ELT) DID NOT OPER. THE ACFTWAS NOT FND UNTIL 1012 PST THE NEXT DAY APRX 1 MI FM WHERE RADAR CTCT WAS LOST. THERE WAS EVIDENCE THAT SNW & ICE HAD ACCUMULATED IN THE ENG AIR FILTER. ICE WAS FND IN THE WIRE SCREEN & PLENUM BHND THE FILTER. CARB HEAT WAS ON. RESIDENTS APRX 5 MI AWAY SAID HVY SNW WAS FALLING. TWO DEFECTIVE TRANSISTORS WERE FND IN THE ELT WHICH WOULD HAVE PREVENTED OPN.
Probable cause
THE RECENTLY CERTIFICATED, NON-INSTRUMENT RATED, PVT PLT FLEW INTO THE AN AREA OF LOW CEILINGS, LOW VIS, RAIN & SNW W/O FILING A FLT PLAN. NO RECORD OF A WX BRIEFING WAS FND. A SURVIVING PAX RPRTD THAT DRG FLT, THE PLT FLEW INTO CLDS THAT WERE INITIALLY SCATTERED, BUT AS THE FLT CONTD, THE CLDS BCM THICKER & DARKER. THE PAX SAID THEY FLEW INTO 'ICE CLOUDS.'ICE ACCUMULATED ON THE ACFT & THE ENG BGN TO FALTER. RPRTDLY, CARB HEAT WAS APPLIED TOO LATE TO PREVENT ENG STOPPAGE. A DISTRESS CALL WA MADE AT 1501 PST. SOON THEREAFTER, THE PLT TRANSMITTED THEY WERE 'GOING DOWN' & THEN RADAR & RADIO CTC WERE LOST. THE ACFT COLLIDED WITH TREES ON MTN TERRAIN & CRASHED. THE EMERG LOCATOR BCN (ELT) DID NOT OPER. THE ACFTWAS NOT FND UNTIL 1012 PST THE NEXT DAY APRX 1 MI FM WHERE RADAR CTCT WAS LOST. THERE WAS EVIDENCE THAT SNW & ICE HAD ACCUMULATED IN THE ENG AIR FILTER. ICE WAS FND IN THE WIRE SCREEN & PLENUM BHND THE FILTER. CARB HEAT WAS ON. RESIDENTS APRX 5 MI AWAY SAID HVY SNW WAS FALLING. TWO DEFECTIVE TRANSISTORS WERE FND IN THE ELT WHICH WOULD HAVE PREVENTED OPN.
Verbatim NTSB analysis and probable cause from the NTSB dataset
Sources
NTSB record SEA88FA034
- Event ID
- 20001213X32784
- Case number
- SEA88FA034
- 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: 3d4afdfd178f4c07d7d49eb3ae15ddb3719cfbfb0922ebdfdea27aaee2be1c14; retrieved 2026-09-21T03:51:38.248Z.