SEA87FA027 · Cessna U206F
Cessna U206F · Accident: in flight collision with terrain/water en route
From Moose Creek US Forest Service Airport (1U1) to S80 · Grangeville, ID
Narrative check · The NTSB narrative appears to contradict this record's location. Values are shown as recorded, not corrected; compare with the narrative.
Event
- NTSB case
- SEA87FA027
- 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
- Charter & commuter
- 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
Cessna U206F
- Aircraft type
- Cessna 206
- 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
- N7311Q
- Operator
- Unknown
- Onboard fatalities
- Unknown
- Route
- From Moose Creek US Forest Service Airport (1U1), MOOSE CREEK, IDTo S80 · Grangeville, 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 135: Air Taxi & Commuter
- 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 · climb to 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 collision with terrain/water
- 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 possible
- Pilot in command › In-flight planning/decision, premature
Approximate · Coordinates as recorded by the NTSB; no uncertainty radius is established.
NTSB narrative
AFTER DEPARTURE AND DURING THE INITIAL CRUISE CLIMB THE PLT AND PAX HEARD A METALLIC CLICKING DESCRIBED AS SOUNDING LIKE A 'VALVE TAP' IN AN AUTOMOBILE AND COMING FROM THE ENG AREA. THE PLT EXECUTED AN IMMEDIATE COURSE REVERSAL BACK TO THE AIRSTRIP WHILE STILL WITHIN THE NARROW GORGE OF THE SELWAY RIVER. THE IMMEDIACY OF THE REVERSE TURN WAS BROUGHT ABOUT BY THE PLT'S EXPECTATION OF IMPENDING MECH PROBLEM WITH THE ACFT AS WELL AS ANXIETY OF THE SITUATION AT SUCH A CRITICAL TIME DURING THE FLT. THE TURN AT A RELATIVELY LOW ALT WITHIN THE GORGE NECESSITATED A TIGHT TURN RADIUS AND THUS REDUCED THE RATE OF CLIMB IN AN ALREADY HEAVILY LOADED ACFT. THIS EVENT PLACED THE ACFT IN A POSITION WHEREBY CLEARANCE WITH THE HEAVILY WOODED UPSLOPING SIDES OF THE GORGE WAS NOT POSSIBLE. DISASSEMBLY, INSPECTION AND TESTING (WHERE POSSIBLE) OF THE ENG, PROP AND ASSOCIATED COMPONENTS REVEALED NO EVIDENCE OF ANY PREIMPACT MALFUNCTION WHICH WOULD HAVE RESULTED IN A POWER LOSS, NOR ANY EXPLANATION FOR THE CLICKING NOISE.
Verbatim NTSB analysis from the NTSB dataset
Sources
NTSB record SEA87FA027
- Event ID
- 20001213X35271
- Case number
- SEA87FA027
- 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: 6e83c73164f7cd82222737ec7760ba32e0eddf3b18ee16ec1a5d4893f2c3d2f8; retrieved 2026-09-18T14:16:47.919Z.