SEA01FA145 · Piper PA-32-260
Piper PA-32-260 · Accident: loss of control in flight during initial climb
From 1S0 · Puyallup, WA to 1S0
Event
- NTSB case
- SEA01FA145
- 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
- 6 · 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
- Visual Meteorological Cond
Piper PA-32-260
- 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
- N3479W
- Operator
- Unknown
- Onboard fatalities
- Unknown
- Route
- From 1S0 · Puyallup, WATo 1S0
- 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
- Initial climb
- 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
- Loss of control in flight
- 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
- Destroyed
Cause areas
- Pilot in command › Airspeed, 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
The airplane was destroyed after colliding with trees and terrain approximately 3/4 mile north of the airport. On the morning of the accident, the pilot and five passengers boarded the airplane for a local sightseeing flight. The co-owner of the airplane, who is a rated pilot, stated that from the ground he observed what seemed to be a normal takeoff, but shortly thereafter the airplane started a descending turn to the west and the witness lost sight of the airplane. Another witness, who stated he observed the accident from the airport, reported that the airplane turned to the west shortly after departure. He stated that during the turn, the airplane appeared to stall, "... and then went down." The estimated gross weight of the airplane at takeoff was 3,388 pounds, 12 pounds below the airplane's maximum gross weight. The airplane's center of gravity could not be calculated due to the fact that the exact location/station of the baggage could not be determined.
Probable cause
The pilot's failure to maintain adequate airspeed during departure resulting in a stall. Trees were a factor in the accident.
Verbatim NTSB analysis and probable cause from the NTSB dataset
Sources
NTSB record SEA01FA145
- Event ID
- 20010806X01608
- Case number
- SEA01FA145
- 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, coordinates. 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: 1bdd91a121a6470e025ddb9cf00e357d0d3a203e8b786f5de527458f94645f02; retrieved 2026-09-20T20:25:59.340Z.