SEA03LA016 · Luscombe 8A
Luscombe 8A · Accident: in flight collision with object en route
From Walla Walla Regional Airport (ALW) to Missoula Montana Airport (MSO)
Event
- NTSB case
- SEA03LA016
- 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
- 0 · 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
Luscombe 8A
- Aircraft type
- Luscombe 8
- 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
- C-FIIF
- Operator
- Unknown
- Onboard fatalities
- Unknown
- Route
- From Walla Walla Regional Airport (ALW), Walla Walla, WATo Missoula Montana Airport (MSO), Missoula, MT
- 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 collision with object
- 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 › 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
While in cruise flight in an area where the airplane's outside air temperature gauge was reading within one degree of freezing, the pilot flew through a rain shower that produced an ice coating on the windscreen. He then attempted to fly the 62 year old airplane, which did not have an electrical system, and was not IFR-equipped, by reference to the limited instruments available. Because the pilot found the aircraft difficult and unstable to fly on instruments, he was not able to get a good look at his sectional aeronautical map, and was therefore not sure of the terrain clearance between himelf and the airport that he decided to divert to after encountering the freezing rain. Because there was a 1,000 foot overcast in the area, within which additional icing could be expected, the pilot chose not to climb, and instead maintained his previous altitude. When he got within about 4 miles of the airport, the airplane flew into trees that were growing on the only high terrain within 10 miles of the runway.
Probable cause
The pilot's failure to maintain clearance from the terrain while attempting to fly a non-IFR equipped aircraft solely by reference to its instruments after the aircraft's windshield became coated with freezing rain in cruise flight. A factor was the pilot's improper inflight decision to continue VFR flight in an area where rain showers where taking place while ambient temperatures where indicated to be within one degree of freezing. Additional factors include freezing rain, an iced-over windshield, and tree-covered rising terrain.
Verbatim NTSB analysis and probable cause from the NTSB dataset
Sources
NTSB record SEA03LA016
- Event ID
- 20021211X05594
- Case number
- SEA03LA016
- 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: 7a0f14dc227d863fed8af27ff2bdcf15b35d2cf9847e02901f6d1eedaa04e447; retrieved 2026-09-21T09:32:36.710Z.