SEA83FA131 · Piper PA-32-300
Piper PA-32-300 · Accident: in flight encounter with weather en route
From S13 · Alderwood Manor, WA to an unrecorded destination
Event
- NTSB case
- SEA83FA131
- 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
- 5 · 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
Piper PA-32-300
- Aircraft type
- Piper PA-32
- 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
- N4013R
- Operator
- Phillip E. Strathy · private individual
- Onboard fatalities
- Unknown
- Route
- From S13 · Alderwood Manor, WATo not recorded
- 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
- Also codedOther events the NTSB coded in the sequence, such as a wire strike after a loss of power. Flight Findings uses them for its kinds of event. Glossary
- Visual flight rules (VFR) flight into instrument meteorological conditions (IMC)
- 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 › Overconfidence in personal ability
- Pilot in command › VFR flight into imc, intentional
Approximate · Coordinates as recorded by the NTSB; no uncertainty radius is established.
NTSB narrative
THE ACFT COLLIDED WITH A SIDE OF GLACIER PEAK AT ABOUT 10000 FT MSL WHILE IN LEVEL FLT. THE EXACT WEATHER CONDITIONS AT THE ACCIDENT SITE AT THE TIME OF THE ACCIDENT ARE UNKNOWN BUT SEVERAL MOUNTAIN CLIMBERS AT 6000 FT ABOUT 2 MILES AWAY ATABOUT THE SAME TIME DESCRIBE THE WEATHER AS SKY OBSCURED, VISIBILITY 50 FT IN LIGHT TO MODERATE WET SNOW, NO WIND. TEMPERATURE +38 DEGREES F. THE FLT WAS ENROUTE FROM ALDERWOOD MANOR TO THE PILOTS PRIVATE AIRSTRIP NEAR SPOKANE, WA. A WITNESS WHO HAD FLOWN THE ROUTE WITH THE PLT SEVERAL TIMES SAID THAT THE FLT NORMALLY PASSED SOUTH OF GLACIER PEAK AT ABOUT 10000-11000 FT. HE SAID THAT THE PILOT USED NAV AIDS ALONG THE ROUTE AND WOULD FLY IN CLOUDS IF THE WEATHER DICTATED IT. THE PILOT DID NOT NORMALLY TALK WITH ANYONE ON THE RADIO DURING FLT IN THE CLOUDS. HE DID HOWEVER ALWAYS GET A WEATHER BRIEFING. IT IS NOT KNOWN WHICH IF ANY NAV AIDS THE PLT USED DURING THE ACCIDENT FLT. THERE IS NO KNOWN RECORD OF COMMUNICATIONS BETWEEN THE ACFT AND ANY RADIO FACILITY.
Verbatim NTSB analysis from the NTSB dataset
Sources
NTSB record SEA83FA131
- Event ID
- 20001214X43524
- Case number
- SEA83FA131
- 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: 1243ece0144c2131facad9badea10923343c27153ad3b4a8c0947ac1cf51cb04; retrieved 2026-09-21T06:38:14.337Z.