SEA06FA147 · Cessna 421C
Cessna 421C · Accident: in flight encounter with weather while maneuvering
From Scottsdale Airport (SDL) to Tacoma Narrows Airport (TIW)
Event
- NTSB case
- SEA06FA147
- 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
- Instrument Meteorological Cond
Cessna 421C
- Aircraft type
- Cessna 421
- 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
- N69KM
- Operator
- Martin A Ayres · private individual
- Onboard fatalities
- Unknown
- Route
- From Scottsdale Airport (SDL), Scottsdale, AZTo Tacoma Narrows Airport (TIW), Tacoma, 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
- In flight encounter with weather
- 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 › 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
During a cross country flight, the pilot was informed by air traffic control that adverse weather was along his route of flight for terrain obscurement in clouds, precipitation, fog or mist. Turbulence was reported below 12,000 feet and occasional moderate rime or mixed icing was reported from the freezing level to 14,000 feet. Further along the route, the pilot reported to another controller that he was at 13,000 feet and descending. The controller inquired if the pilot was aware of the center weather advisory and the reports of severe rime ice in the direction that he was heading. The pilot acknowledged the controller by reporting that he was aware of the weather and that the aircraft was "equipped." The controller continued to inform the pilot of pilot reports from commercial aircraft flight crews of the reports of icing conditions, however, the pilot continued on his routing and again reported that the aircraft was "equipped." During the last transmissions from the pilot, he reported that he was "turning on (de-ice) equipment now." The controller recommended to the pilot to stay clear of the clouds. The pilot responded, "roger." The controller then asked the pilot if he was "going to orbit there for awhile." The pilot responded, "yes," followed by a partially unintelligible transmission of "getting some weather here." The pilot's last transmissions were "Ah, I'm in a little trouble," followed by "Ah, standby 9KM." Radar tracking indicated that the aircraft had been cruising at 16,500 feet before starting a gradual descent. The aircraft descended to 12,700 feet and it began a turn to the right. During this turn, the aircraft's altitude changed rapidly beginning with an increase, followed by a rapid loss of altitude from 8,000 feet per minute descent to 10,600 feet per minute descent before radar contact was lost. The aircraft was found 6 months later in an area of mountainous terrain. On site evidence indicated that the aircraft collided with trees and terrain in a nose low attitude with the majority of the wreckage contained in a large deep crater.
Probable cause
The pilot's failure to maintain aircraft control while maneuvering. Icing conditions, clouds and the pilot's continued flight into known adverse weather were factors.
Verbatim NTSB analysis and probable cause from the NTSB dataset
Sources
NTSB record SEA06FA147
- Event ID
- 20060816X01178
- Case number
- SEA06FA147
- 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: 73c89c90b7e904f7264fa47a2c079fae715df9da9721104dfcc77d4008a9214b; retrieved 2026-09-20T17:34:58.012Z.