SEA03FA165 · Cessna 320D
Cessna 320D · Accident: in flight encounter with weather while maneuvering
From Pangborn Memorial Airport (EAT) to AD5 · Merritt, BC
Event
- NTSB case
- SEA03FA165
- 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 320D
- 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
- N4178T
- Operator
- Unknown
- Onboard fatalities
- Unknown
- Route
- From Pangborn Memorial Airport (EAT), Wenatchee, WATo AD5 · Merritt, BC
- 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 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 › 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 aircraft had been missing for four months when the wreckage was spotted by a helicopter pilot engaged in firefighting operations. The wreckage was located on the east wall of a north/south running valley at the 5,000 foot level. On site documentation of the wreckage indicated that the aircraft was traveling in a northerly direction when it collided with several trees before impacting the steep mountainous terrain. No evidence of a mechanical failure or malfunction was indicated. At the time of the accident, low clouds and mountain obscuration were in the area. Two pilot's flying in the area north of the departure airport had observed a twin engine aircraft flying in a northerly direction between 200 to 500 feet above ground level. Data extracted from the on board GPS unit indicated that the destination may have been to an airport in Canada. The last coordinates and altitude matched the accident site location and elevation. The last recorded speed was 197 knots. No flight plan had been filed nor was there evidence of a weather briefing from flight services. Family members were unable to verify the purpose of the flight or its destination.
Probable cause
The pilot's failure to maintain clearance from terrain while maneuvering. Mountainous terrain, trees and mountain obscuration were factors.
Verbatim NTSB analysis and probable cause from the NTSB dataset
Sources
NTSB record SEA03FA165
- Event ID
- 20030814X01328
- Case number
- SEA03FA165
- 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: a5add0b307d1badfd655f5240492c5f8f4005c018a36ea8a0ec5f247d6508842; retrieved 2026-09-20T19:18:09.959Z.