SEA01FA070 · Cessna 182P
Cessna 182P · Accident: in flight encounter with weather
From Felts Field (SFF) to Pullman-Moscow Regional Airport (PUW)
Event
- NTSB case
- SEA01FA070
- 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
- Unknown
- 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
- Not recorded
Cessna 182P
- Aircraft type
- Cessna 182
- 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
- N21565
- Operator
- Unknown
- Onboard fatalities
- Unknown
- Route
- From Felts Field (SFF), Spokane, WATo Pullman-Moscow Regional Airport (PUW), Pullman, 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
- Unknown
- 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
- Tree(s)
- 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 › Altitude/clearance, not maintained
Approximate · Coordinates from the NTSB case API, which marks them as estimated or does not say; no uncertainty radius is established.
NTSB narrative
In a telephone call to the Seattle Automated Flight Service Station (AFSS) about 20 minutes before departure, the pilot asked for the current conditions for the departure and destination airports. Both airports were reporting marginal visual flight rules (VFR) conditions, with conditions worse at the destination. The ceilings at both locations were lower than forecast at the time of the call, and were forecast to lower during the planned flight. When offered terminal forecasts and other weather information by the briefer, the pilot declined. Shortly thereafter, the flight departed under VFR during dark night conditions; no flight plan was filed and no air traffic services were provided. While flying toward the destination at low altitude, the flight encountered an area of rapidly deteriorating weather including low ceilings, rain, and snow. The airplane subsequently struck a stand of trees, separating its left wing, and crashed. Post-accident examinations of the aircraft and engine did not reveal any evidence of pre-impact mechanical or structural defects with the aircraft or engine. The aircraft's emergency locator transmitter (ELT) did not activate in the crash; the flight was not reported missing for several hours and was not located until several hours after being reported missing. Investigators found the switch on the ELT, whose battery had been changed 2 months before the accident, in the OFF position in the wreckage. The ELT functioned as designed when checked with the switch in the ON and ARMED positions.
Probable cause
The pilot's failure to maintain altitude and/or clearance over trees, resulting in a collision with trees, separation of a wing and uncontrolled collision with terrain. Factors included the pilot's inadequate preflight planning and preparation, dark night conditions, low ceilings, and mixed rain/snow precipitation conditions.
Verbatim NTSB analysis and probable cause from the NTSB dataset
Sources
NTSB record SEA01FA070
- Event ID
- 20010418X00775
- Case number
- SEA01FA070
- 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, coordinates. Values present in the bulk record are kept.
- The date is the local date; the NTSB stores the UTC date 2001-04-11.
- API snapshot SHA-256: 8d64a914a737fa5fefd766328e20228908bf21bf11483a2de3bd05361eb59d24; retrieved 2026-09-20T20:35:51.359Z.