SEA03FA173 · Piper PA-32R-300
Piper PA-32R-300 · Accident: loss of control in flight on approach
From Friedman Memorial Airport (SUN) to Priest River Municipal Airport (1S6)
Event
- NTSB case
- SEA03FA173
- 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
- Visual Meteorological Cond
Piper PA-32R-300
- Aircraft type
- Piper PA-32
- 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
- N6126J
- Operator
- Murfey, George J. · private individual
- Onboard fatalities
- Unknown
- Route
- From Friedman Memorial Airport (SUN), Hailey, IDTo Priest River Municipal Airport (1S6), Priest River, 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
- Approach · VFR pattern turn to base
- 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
- Stall/spin
- 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 › Airspeed, inadequate
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 departed about 1020 bound for its destination. An onboard Global Positioning System (GPS) system, which was recovered at the accident site, retained latitude, longitude, time and altitude for the flight. The GPS data showed the pilot turning north and then initiating a descent from 11,000 feet approximately 45 minutes after takeoff. The data tracked the aircraft through the descent and a turn to the east and then through approximately 135 degrees of right turn to ground impact. Witnesses at a temporary firefighting landing site located a half mile southwest of the crash site and equipped with a windsock and helicopter observed the aircraft fly west to east slightly north of the landing site and roughly parallel to the axis of the landing area. They observed the landing gear extend and watched the aircraft execute a descending right turn as if the aircraft were lining up to land at the helibase. One witness commented that the aircraft was "moving extremely slow, at/near stall speed" and another witness remarked that the aircraft "appeared to stall" descending vertically to ground impact. On site examination revealed a near vertical (83 degree) ground impact along with evidence of high rotational energy of the propeller immediately before/at ground impact. The aircraft's last GPS target showed it at an altitude of 5,666 feet and the ground impact was at 5,410 feet. The aircraft's track from the 90 degree position of the approach through the 135 degree position placed it over rapidly up sloping terrain ascending more than 200 feet during this 45 degree arc of the approach turn. The terrain was heavily populated with conifer trees approximately 75 feet in height and a high tension power line traversed the top of the hill slightly below tree top level. Post-crash examination revealed no indication of control discontinuity or powerplant malfunction. Examination of the aircraft's fuel system found fuel at the fuel flow divider, both gas caps secured and no evidence of fuel staining at the low point (belly) drain or on the exterior of the aircraft.
Probable cause
The pilot's failure to maintain adequate airspeed during final approach resulting in a stall/spin. Contributing factors were the rapidly rising terrain and trees.
Verbatim NTSB analysis and probable cause from the NTSB dataset
Sources
NTSB record SEA03FA173
- Event ID
- 20030908X01483
- Case number
- SEA03FA173
- 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: 4113e6cadc813088a6036b2a1a7c8b9d283c701ed44d75de78ef0f74fe6f559b; retrieved 2026-09-20T18:58:52.850Z.