SEA91FA061 · Cessna 172M
Trinity Western University Cessna 172M · Accident: in flight encounter with weather en route
From Seattle Paine Field International Airport (PAE) to Abbotsford International Airport (CYXX)
Event
- NTSB case
- SEA91FA061
- 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
- Instrument Meteorological Cond
Cessna 172M
- Aircraft type
- Cessna 172
- 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
- CGJNM
- Operator
- Trinity Western University
- Onboard fatalities
- Unknown
- Route
- From Seattle Paine Field International Airport (PAE), Everett, WATo Abbotsford International Airport (CYXX), ABBOTSFORD,BC
- 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 › Proper altitude, not maintained
- Pilot in command › VFR flight into imc, inadvertent
Approximate · Coordinates as recorded by the NTSB; no uncertainty radius is established.
NTSB narrative
THE ACFT WAS 1 OF 5 THAT WERE ON A RETURN TRIP FROM LOS ANGELES, CA, TO ABBOTSFORD, BRITISH COLUMBIA, CANADA. THE FLT CREWS HAD OBTAINED WX INFO DURING STOPS AT CRESENT CITY, CA, & NEWPORT, OR. AFTER LNDG AT EVERETT, WA, ONE OF THE FLT CREWS FILED A FLT PLAN FOR ALL 5 ACFT. AT THAT TIME, HE WAS ASKED IF HE WANTED A WX BRIEFING, BUT HE INDCD THEY HAD ALREADY RCVD A BRIEF FOR THE ROUTE. RPRTDLY, THE PLTS ALSO OBTAINED WX INFO FROM A COMPUTER IN THE LOBBY OF AN FBO AT EVERETT. AFTER DEPG EVERETT ON A NGT FLT TO ABBOTSFORD, THE FLTS ENCTRD DETERIORATING WX WITH SNOW & CLOUDS. THE FLT CREWS OF 2 ACFT REVERSED COURSE & LNDD AT AN ALTERNATE ARPT. THE CREW OF A 3RD ACFT DIVERTED, WENT OVER WATER, THEN CONTD EN ROUTE. HOWEVER, THE 2 REMAINING ACFT (C-GJNM & C-GIXI) COLLIDED WITH MOUNTAINOUS TRRN ABT 3 MI APART. C-GJNM IMPACTED ON WOODED TRRN AT AN ELEV OF ABT 2100'. ABT 11 MI NW AT BELLINGHAM, WA (ELEV 158'), THE 1950 WX WAS IN PART: 2100' BKN, 10 MI VIS WITH RAIN, WIND FM 240 DEG AT 6 KTS. THE WRECKAGE WAS FND THE NEXT DAY CVRD WITH SNOW.
Probable cause
VFR FLIGHT BY THE PILOT INTO INSTRUMENT METEOROLOGICAL CONDITIONS (IMC), AND HIS FAILURE TO MAINTAIN PROPER ALTITUDE AND/OR CLEAREANCE FROM THE MOUNTAINOUS TERRAIN. FACTORS RELATED TO THE ACCIDENT WERE: DARKNESS AND THE ADVERSE WEATHER AND TERRAIN CONDITIONS.
Verbatim NTSB analysis and probable cause from the NTSB dataset
Sources
NTSB record SEA91FA061
- Event ID
- 20010110X00280
- Case number
- SEA91FA061
- 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 1991-03-06.
- API snapshot SHA-256: 6cc675734133c50b1c256c84de6a2964690eb75dea612902428e5b048e4dbbf8; retrieved 2026-09-21T01:56:27.013Z.