SEA04LA027 · Erickson (Glasair) SHA Glasair TD
Erickson (Glasair) SHA Glasair TD · Accident: in flight collision with object
From Yakima Air Terminal McAllister Field (YKM) to Walla Walla Regional Airport (ALW)
Narrative check · The NTSB narrative appears to contradict this record's location. Values are shown as recorded, not corrected; compare with the narrative.
Event
- NTSB case
- SEA04LA027
- 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
Erickson (Glasair) SHA Glasair TD
- Aircraft type
- Erickson (glasair) SHA GLASAIR TD
- 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
- N434SW
- Operator
- Unknown
- Onboard fatalities
- Unknown
- Route
- From Yakima Air Terminal McAllister Field (YKM), Yakima, WATo Walla Walla Regional Airport (ALW), Walla Walla, 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
- Unknown
- 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
- Pole
- 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 as recorded by the NTSB; no uncertainty radius is established.
NTSB narrative
The pilot and passenger departed Yakima destined for Walla Walla, Washington, and en route flew through an area of wind turbines and associated anemometer poles measuring 50 meters in height. An ear witness reported hearing an explosive sound and noted smoke in the direction of the sound. Upon investigating the sound, the witness discovered the aircraft ground impact site about 1000 feet east-northeast of a broken anemometer pole. Visual meteorological conditions existed at the accident site and the pilot had logged more than 11,200 hours of flight experience.
Probable cause
The pilot's failure to maintain adequate clearance with the anemometer pole/wires during low altitude flight. Contributing factors were the pole and the pilot's low altitude flight.
Verbatim NTSB analysis and probable cause from the NTSB dataset
Sources
NTSB record SEA04LA027
- Event ID
- 20031222X02075
- Case number
- SEA04LA027
- 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. 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: 43af02112b309749d47fac4859ea1817328c3fc436f525e43c0cfbcb101f88e7; retrieved 2026-09-20T18:42:32.148Z.