DEN86FA071 · Cessna 180
Cessna 180 · Accident: in flight encounter with weather en route
From Glacier Park International Airport (FCA) to King County International Airport - Boeing Field (BFI)
Event
- NTSB case
- DEN86FA071
- 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
- 1 · 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 180
- Aircraft type
- Cessna 180
- 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
- N2874K
- Operator
- Unknown
- Onboard fatalities
- Unknown
- Route
- From Glacier Park International Airport (FCA), Kalispell, MTTo King County International Airport - Boeing Field (BFI), Seattle, 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
- 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 into known adverse weather, initiated
- Pilot in command › Spatial disorientation
- Pilot in command › Visual/aural perception
- Pilot in command › Weather evaluation, performed
Approximate · Coordinates as recorded by the NTSB; no uncertainty radius is established.
NTSB narrative
THE PLT RECEIVED A WX BRIEFING AND FILED AN IFR FLT PLAN TO BOEING FIELD, SEATTLE, WA. HE DEPARTED KALISPELL, MT, AT 1135 MST. WHEN THE PLT ARRIVED IN THE SPOKANE AREA, HE OBTAINED WX REPORTS FOR SEATTLE AND DECIDED TO TURN AROUND AND RETURN TO KALISPELL. WX AT KALISPELL HAD DETERIORATED. THE PLT WAS CLEARED FOR A CONTACT APCH. THE PLT ADVISED THE SALT LAKE ARTCC THAT HE HAD A SMALL LAKE IN SIGHT BELOW, WAS CANCELLING IFR AND PROCEEDING VFR. ICE FISHERMEN OBSERVED THE ACFT MAKE SEVERAL PASSES OVER THE LAKE THEN HEARD THE SOUND OF IMPACT. THEY DESCRIBED THE WX AS LOW CEILING, REDUCED VISIBILITY, SNOW, AND FOG. ALTHOUGH THE PLT COULD NOT RECALL THE EVENTS LEADING UP TO THE ACCIDENT, HE SURMISED THAT HE MAY HAVE ATTEMPTED A PRECAUTIONARY LANDING DUE TO AN ACCUMULATION OF AIRFRAME ICE. FLT PRECAUTIONS FOR MODERATE RIME ICE IN CLOUDS AND PRECIPITATION FROM FREEZING LEVEL TO 14,000 FT HAD BEEN FORECAST.
Verbatim NTSB analysis from the NTSB dataset
Sources
NTSB record DEN86FA071
- Event ID
- 20001213X32838
- Case number
- DEN86FA071
- 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: 980a33530a2bcd08f27f8e2bdd02f3cde68c47dcd349b8efbd657772450111b7; retrieved 2026-09-21T04:40:57.013Z.