DEN82FA056 · Cessna 320F
Three-Twenty Flying Club Cessna 320F · Accident: in flight encounter with weather en route
From King County International Airport - Boeing Field (BFI) to C · Piedmont, SC
Event
- NTSB case
- DEN82FA056
- 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 320F
- Aircraft type
- Cessna 320
- 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
- N999LS
- Operator
- Three-Twenty Flying Club
- Onboard fatalities
- Unknown
- Route
- From King County International Airport - Boeing Field (BFI), Seattle, WATo C · Piedmont, SC
- 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 · holding (IFR)
- 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
- Destroyed
Cause areas
- Fuel system, ram air/induction air › Ice
- Pilot in command › Emergency procedure, improper
- Pilot in command › Powerplant controls, improper use of
Approximate · Coordinates as recorded by the NTSB; no uncertainty radius is established.
NTSB narrative
DURING ARRIVAL FOR AN ILS-2 APPROACH TO RUNWAY 11, THE PILOT WAS ADVISED TO HOLD AT THE KONA NDB WHILE SNOWPLOWS FINISHED CLEARING THE RUNWAY. AT THAT TIME, THE MISSOULA WEATHER WAS 1200 FT OBSCURED, 2 MI VISIBILITY WITH LIGHT SNOW AND FOG, TEMPERATURE AND DEW POINT WERE 32 AND 30 DEG RESPECTIVELY. ABOUT 1 MIN AFTER REACHING THE KONA NDB, THE PILOT DECLARED AN EMERGENCY AND REPORTED THAT BOTH ENGINES WERE BEGINNING TO LOSE POWER. AT THAT TIME, HE WAS CLEARED FOR AN IMMEDIATE APPROACH. SUBSEQUENTLY, THE PLANE COLLIDED WITH TREES AND CRASHED BETWEEN THE KONA NDB AND THE ILS OUTER MARKER. DURING AN INVESTIGATION, ALL FUEL TANKS WERE FOUND RUPTURED, BUT FUEL STAINS WERE FOUND BY BOTH TIP TANKS. NO PREIMPACT, MECHANICAL FAILURES WERE FOUND. BOTH ALTERNATE AIR HANDLES WERE FOUND CLOSED. JUST PRIOR TO CRASHING, WITNESSES HEARD THE PLANE AT LOW ALTITUDE. THEY REPORTED THAT 1 OR MORE ENGINES WERE RUNNING AND HEAVY SNOW WAS FALLING AND BLOWING.
Verbatim NTSB analysis from the NTSB dataset
Sources
NTSB record DEN82FA056
- Event ID
- 20020917X01972
- Case number
- DEN82FA056
- 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 1982-04-07.
- API snapshot SHA-256: 9148d1494f3ed5b3ac3f6b588b9a51ab628cfd458dbd0a545b9559e9bd1db80b; retrieved 2026-09-21T08:32:59.917Z.