SEA07FA246 · Piper PA-28-140
Piper PA-28-140 · Accident: in flight collision with terrain/water while maneuvering
From Salem-Willamette Valley Airport/McNary Field (SLE) to an unrecorded destination
Event
- NTSB case
- SEA07FA246
- 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-28-140
- Aircraft type
- Piper PA-28
- 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
- N6735J
- Operator
- Unknown
- Onboard fatalities
- Unknown
- Route
- From Salem-Willamette Valley Airport/McNary Field (SLE), Salem, ORTo not recorded
- 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 collision with terrain/water
- 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
- Unknown › 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 private pilot/owner of the airplane departed from his home base airport and landed at another airport to pick up another pilot/certified flight instructor (CFI). From this point, the flight departed to a local area airport where per data collected from the GPS indicated that the flight accomplished several race track orbits in what appeared to be a holding pattern. The flight then proceeded southbound to another airport where a landing was made. The pilots ate dinner and fueled the airplane before departing further south where the flight again executed three obits in a holding pattern over an airstrip before continuing on to another airport where another set of race track type holding patterns were executed approximately 3.5 miles southwest of the eventual accident site. The flight then flew west-northwesterly toward the area of the accident site where the tracking stopped. Family members to both pilots reported that the CFI had been giving the private pilot flight instruction for an instrument rating. The family members to the CFI, who were also witnesses, reported that it was common practice that when the CFI returned home from working in another state, he would fly over his family residences which notified them that he was home. He would then fly to a nearby airport where he kept his vehicle. The accident site was located across the road from the family residences. The CFI's family members reported hearing a low flying airplane in the area and assumed that it was his flight. The airplane was not observed, but they did report hearing the sound of a collision. Another witness, not a family member, reported that he observed a low wing airplane flying about treetop height down the canyon before it made a turn back up the canyon. The accident site was located on hilly terrain in a clear cut area covered with tree stumps and piles of slash. Evidence gathered at the site indicated that the aircraft collided with the terrain in a left wing low attitude. Post-accident examination of the airframe and engine did not disclose any evidence to support a mechanical failure or malfunction. It was not determined which pilot was manipulating the flight controls at the time of the accident.
Probable cause
Terrain clearance was not maintained while maneuvering. A low altitude during the maneuver and hilly terrain were factors.
Verbatim NTSB analysis and probable cause from the NTSB dataset
Sources
NTSB record SEA07FA246
- Event ID
- 20070917X01398
- Case number
- SEA07FA246
- 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: local date, investigation status, coordinates. Values present in the bulk record are kept.
- The date is the local date; the NTSB stores the UTC date 2007-09-13.
- API snapshot SHA-256: a93fc4a7e283dcae562fe7c9e439b03538d2331577f57275f4ef57566b8797d5; retrieved 2026-09-20T16:17:35.701Z.