SEA84LA142 · Cessna 150M
Cessna 150M · Accident: in flight collision with terrain/water on approach
From Tacoma Narrows Airport (TIW) to Fall City Airport (1WA6)
Event
- NTSB case
- SEA84LA142
- 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
- 0 · 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
Cessna 150M
- Aircraft type
- Cessna 150
- 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
- N3184V
- Operator
- Unknown
- Onboard fatalities
- Unknown
- Route
- From Tacoma Narrows Airport (TIW), Tacoma, WATo Fall City Airport (1WA6), Fall City, 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
- Approach · VFR go-around
- 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
- Substantial
Cause areas
- Pilot in command › Go-around, delayed
- Pilot in command › In-flight planning/decision, inadequate
- Pilot in command › Lack of familiarity with geographic area
- Pilot in command › Planned approach, poor
- Pilot in command › Raising of flaps, improper
- Pilot in command › Throttle/power control, improper use of
- Pilot in command › Total
Approximate · Coordinates as recorded by the NTSB; no uncertainty radius is established.
NTSB narrative
THE PLT WAS APPROACHING A STRANGE ARPT WITH A RWY ELEVATION OF 140 FT AND SURROUNDING TERRAIN OF 1000 TO 3000 FT. THE PLT SAID AS HE APPROACHED THE THRESHOLD HE FELT THE ACFT WAS TOO HIGH SO HE EXECUTED A GO-AROUND. WITH THE FLAPS AT 20 DEGREES HE SAID HIS CLIMB RATE WAS ONLY 200 FPM. AFTER REACHING 1000 FT MSL HE DECIDED THAT THE ACFT WOULD NOT CLEAR THETREES SO 'HE SHUT THE ACFT DOWN' AND CRASH LANDED IN SOME SMALL TREES. THE DENSITY ATL WAS COMPUTED AS BEING 2000 FT. HE RECOMMENDED A LONGER LOWER APCH TO THE ARPT OR AN ACFT CAPABLE OF A GREATER RATE OF CLIMB. THE ACFT ENGINE WAS CHECKED AND FOUND TO BE WITHIN NORMAL OPERATING LIMITS.
Verbatim NTSB analysis from the NTSB dataset
Sources
NTSB record SEA84LA142
- Event ID
- 20001214X40146
- Case number
- SEA84LA142
- 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: 9f53d7e1d00682d45d97cce64bcca6cd231609f6261859fe91a93c19efbed4cb; retrieved 2026-09-23T20:15:25.184Z.