SEA86FA225 · Cessna 340A
Cessna 340A · Accident: in flight encounter with weather en route
From Hollywood Burbank/Bob Hope Airport (BUR) to 2V5 · Wray, CO
Event
- NTSB case
- SEA86FA225
- 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
- 2 · 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
- Unknown
Cessna 340A
- Aircraft type
- Cessna 340
- 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
- N340MV
- Operator
- Unknown
- Onboard fatalities
- Unknown
- Route
- From Hollywood Burbank/Bob Hope Airport (BUR), Burbank, CATo 2V5 · Wray, CO
- 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 › In-flight planning/decision, improper
- Pilot in command › Reason for occurrence undetermined
Approximate · Estimated position: the centre of Mesquite, NV, the place the record names. Not the accident site.
NTSB narrative
WHILE EN ROUTE, THE PLT WAS CLEARED TO DEVIATE 20 DEG LEFT OF COURSE TO AVOID THUNDERSTORM (TSTM) ACTIVITY THAT ARTCC RADAR SHOWED WAS RGT OF COURSE. THE PLT RPRTD TURBC, BUT DEMURRED DESCENDING TO A LOWER ALT DESPITE A PIREP OF CLEAR WX BELOW. HE THEN RPRTD 'IN A CELL' WITH TURBC. RADAR & RADIO CONTACT WITH THE ACFT WERE LOST. ANOTHER PLT, WHO FLEW APRX 15 MI FURTHER SOUTH, RPRTD NO WX, BUT SAID THERE WAS EXTREME WX TO THE NORTH WITH NEAR CONSTANT LIGHTNING. SUBSEQUENTLY,N340MV IMPACTED THE GROUND IN A STEEP NOSE-DOWN, LEFT WING LOW ATTITUDE, AFTER A 14,000 FT DSCNT. THE LANDING GEAR WAS EXTENDED WHEN THE PLANE CRASHED. AN EXAM OF THE WRECKAGE REVEALED NO PREIMPACT STRUCTURAL FAILURE OR ACFT COMPONENT MALFUNCTION. ALSO, THE WRECKAGE SHOWED NO EVIDENCE OF WEATHER DAMAGE FROM HAIL OR LIGHTNING. HOWEVER, WX INFO SHOWED THERE WAS HIGH ALT TSTM ACTIVITY WITH TURBC IN THE AREA AT THE TIME OF THE MISHAP.
Verbatim NTSB analysis from the NTSB dataset
Sources
NTSB record SEA86FA225
- Event ID
- 20001213X34628
- Case number
- SEA86FA225
- 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 1986-08-26.
- API snapshot SHA-256: de457288d81a078cdd90cd97509b8cc37eee1d8e310a5265211aea226a85fec6; retrieved 2026-09-21T04:25:40.749Z.