SEA08LA031 · Cessna 182A
Cessna 182A and American Champion Aircraft 7GCBC · Accident: midair collision en route
Event
- NTSB case
- SEA08LA031
- 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
- 0 · 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
Aircraft 1 · Cessna 182A
- Aircraft type
- Cessna 182
- 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
- N6147B
- Operator
- Unknown
- Onboard fatalities
- Unknown
- Route
- From Pierce County-Thun Field (PLU), Puyallup, WATo William R Fairchild International Airport (CLM), Port Angeles, 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
- En route · cruise
- 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
- Midair collision
- DamageDestroyed: beyond practical repair. Substantial: damage that affects the structure, performance or handling and normally needs major repair. Minor: less than that. Glossary
- Substantial
Aircraft 2 · American Champion Aircraft 7GCBC
- Aircraft type
- American Champion 7
- 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
- N707BS
- Operator
- Thomas Vincent Torchia
- Onboard fatalities
- Unknown
- Route
- From Norman Grier Field (S36), Kent, WATo 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
- En route · cruise
- 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
- Midair collision
- 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
- Pilots of both aircraft › Visual lookout, inadequate
Approximate · Coordinates from the NTSB case API, which marks them as estimated or does not say; no uncertainty radius is established.
NTSB narrative
A Cessna 182A airplane and an American Champion Aircraft 7GCBC airplane collided in midair around 1,500 feet mean sea level (msl) during cruise flight. The pilot of the Cessna 182A said that he was level at 1,500 feet msl on a northwesterly heading and saw a blue and white high wing airplane crossing in front of his immediate position and pitched the airplane upwards just prior to colliding with the other airplane. After the collision, the pilot determined that his airplane was still controllable and he was able to continue flight and land at the airport he originated from. The pilot stated that prior to the collision, he was monitoring both the Common Traffic Advisory Frequency and the tower frequency from another nearby controlled airport, and was also conducting a visual scan of the area with the intention of switching to the tower frequency for his destination airport to monitor local area traffic. The pilot of the American Champion Aircraft 7GCBC reported he was in level cruise flight at an altitude of 1,500 feet msl on a southwesterly heading towards his destination airport when he heard a loud bang followed by a sudden loss of directional control. The pilot stated that the airplane remained flying; however, it was in a 15-degree descending left bank despite opposite control inputs. The pilot initiated a forced landing into the waters of a bay. Both the pilot and passenger exited the airplane as it started to sink. Prior to the airplane sinking; the pilot noticed that the vertical stabilizer was missing. The pilot added that prior to the collision, he had established contact with the tower controller at his destination airport. Review of radar data revealed that the Cessna 182A was on a northwesterly heading and the American Champion Aircraft 7GCBC on a southwesterly heading on converging paths. The Aeronautical Information Manual (AIM), Section, 7-5-2 -- VFR in Congested Areas, recommended that when operating VFR in congested areas, "extra vigilance be maintained."
Probable cause
The failure of both pilots to maintain an adequate visual lookout during cruise flight.
Verbatim NTSB analysis and probable cause from the NTSB dataset
Sources
NTSB record SEA08LA031
- Event ID
- 20071130X01882
- Case number
- SEA08LA031
- 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: 7cbaab60aefcd0a8f5b8d1dda6fe4a1e4608044f8385fe517196900892fa07c9; retrieved 2026-09-21T18:21:15.019Z.