SEA03FA123 · Beech A24-R
Beech A24-R · Accident: in flight collision with object while maneuvering
From McCall Municipal Airport (MYL) to Johnson Creek Airport (3U2)
Event
- NTSB case
- SEA03FA123
- 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
- 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
Beech A24-R
- Aircraft type
- Beechcraft 24
- 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
- N254M
- Operator
- Unknown
- Onboard fatalities
- Unknown
- Route
- From McCall Municipal Airport (MYL), MC CALL, IDTo Johnson Creek Airport (3U2), Yellow Pine, ID
- 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
- Maneuvering
- 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
- Destroyed
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
The pilot was attempting to land at an airstrip located in mountainous terrain shortly before the accident occurred. Witnesses reported that the accident airplane was the lead aircraft of a flight of two. The pilot of the number two aircraft stated that both airplanes approached the destination airport from the North with intentions of landing on runway 17. He reported that he was approximately 1.5 miles in trail of the lead aircraft when the pilot radioed that he was going around. Witnesses on the ground reported that they observed the aircraft do a "standard" go-around and remarked that the engine powered up and the gear was retracting from the extended position during the maneuver. Shortly after the go-around, witnesses reported that they began receiving an ELT signal on a handheld radio that was tuned to 121.5 megahertz. The wreckage was later located in heavily wooded, down sloping terrain approximately four miles south of the airport. The elevation of the accident site was approximately 6,100 feet mean sea level (MSL). The first identified point of contact was a grouping of large conifer trees located near the ridge top, uphill from where the main wreckage came to rest. The airport is located in mountainous terrain. The airport has a single turf runway with an elevation of 4,933 feet above sea level. The State of Idaho Airport Facilities Directory entry for the airstrip states, "special considerations should be given to density altitude, turbulence, and mountain flying proficiency."
Probable cause
The pilot's failure to maintain clearance. Factors include trees and mountainous terrain.
Verbatim NTSB analysis and probable cause from the NTSB dataset
Sources
NTSB record SEA03FA123
- Event ID
- 20030714X01094
- Case number
- SEA03FA123
- 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: 35a4b4af7711752e45a39eca910d21d1bbf6dab8572beff8aa31da11302d6a00; retrieved 2026-09-20T19:04:21.636Z.