SEA86FA100 · Piper PA-28R-180
Piper PA-28R-180 · Accident: in flight encounter with weather en route
From Lewiston Nez Perce County Airport (LWS) to Idaho Falls Regional Airport (IDA)
Event
- NTSB case
- SEA86FA100
- 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
- Visual Meteorological Cond
Piper PA-28R-180
- 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
- N3714T
- Operator
- Unknown
- Onboard fatalities
- Unknown
- Route
- From Lewiston Nez Perce County Airport (LWS), Lewiston, IDTo Idaho Falls Regional Airport (IDA), Idaho Falls, ID
- 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 › Clearance, not maintained
- Pilot in command › Weather evaluation, misjudged
Approximate · Coordinates as recorded by the NTSB; no uncertainty radius is established.
NTSB narrative
AFTER AN INITIAL WEATHER BRIEFING THE PLT DEPARTED COEUR DALENE, IDAHO, FOR HIS DESTINATION OF IDAHO FALLS, IDAHO, WITH A PLANNED PASSENGER PICKUP AT MISSOULA, MONTANA. DURING THE SECOND LEG OF THE FLT HE MISNAVIGATED WHILE AVOIDING WEATHER WHICH RESULTED IN AN UNPLANNED FUEL STOP AT LEWISTON, IDAHO AND A 3 HR DELAY FOR THE OCCUPANTS WHO PLANNED TO ATTEND A POLITICAL FUNCTION. THERE WAS NO EVIDENCE OF HIS OBTAINING AN UPDATED WEATHER BRIEFING AFTER THE INITIAL WEATHER BRIEFING. WHILE ENROUTE TO IDAHO FALLS THE ACFT ENCOUNTERED WEATHER CONDITIONS WHICH RESULTED IN THE PLT REQUESTING INSTRUMENT HANDLING. SHORTLY AFTER THE REQUEST THE ACFT COLLIDED WITH UPSLOPING TERRAIN IN A MOUNTAINOUS AREA. DARK NIGHT CONDITIONS EXISTED DURING BOTH THE WEATHER ENCOUNTER AND SUBSEQUENT COLLISION.
Verbatim NTSB analysis from the NTSB dataset
Sources
NTSB record SEA86FA100
- Event ID
- 20001213X33414
- Case number
- SEA86FA100
- 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 1986-04-11.
- API snapshot SHA-256: 1d801ee89780f99052f100cf32f4befa2958f1e3187524ad199fdcc5f9b82bac; retrieved 2026-09-21T04:36:42.513Z.