SEA03LA170 · Avid Magnum
Avid Magnum · Accident: loss of control in flight while maneuvering
From 1S0 · Puyallup, WA to Ranger Creek State Airport (21W)
Event
- NTSB case
- SEA03LA170
- 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
- 1 · 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
Avid Magnum
- Aircraft type
- Avid MAGNUM
- 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
- N2054F
- Operator
- Unknown
- Onboard fatalities
- Unknown
- Route
- From 1S0 · Puyallup, WATo Ranger Creek State Airport (21W), Greenwater, WA
- 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
- 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
- Substantial
Cause areas
- Pilot in command › Aircraft control, 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
A witness who was staying in a campground in close proximity to the accident site reported hearing a small plane flying in a southerly direction, and as it passed overhead "the engine missed once, and then caught again and continued running as the plane continue south." As the plane continued south the witness stated that he did not hear any additional problems, but the engine appeard to be running somewhat roughly, and as the plane continued further south he assumed everything was ok. Several minutes later he heard sirens moving south. Examination of the wreckage revealed the airplane went down steeply between two trees, there was no fire, and there was a significant fuel spill. Examination of the airframe, flight controls, engine assembly and accessories revealed no evidence of a precrash mechanical failure or malfunction. All components necessary for flight were present at the crash site. An autopsy on the pilot revealed artherosclerosis of coronary arteries, focal, moderate to marked, and atherosclerosis of aorta, mild. "Toxicological tests indicated nordiazepam (0.024 ug/ml) detected in blood, and nordiazpam, oxazepam, and temazepam detected in urine."
Probable cause
The pilot's failure to maintain aircraft control while manuevering for undetermined reasons.
Verbatim NTSB analysis and probable cause from the NTSB dataset
Sources
NTSB record SEA03LA170
- Event ID
- 20030903X01442
- Case number
- SEA03LA170
- 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: f52f3c0bf7d02899cfa4d1c22ea2d6f553cbd189b3519e387efeab3b1387dc1a; retrieved 2026-09-20T18:59:30.323Z.