WPR10FA459 · Cessna T210N
Lamax Construction Cessna T210N · Accident: controlled flight into terrain/object (CFIT) while maneuvering
From South Big Horn County Airport (GEY) to Coeur D'Alene Airport - Pappy Boyington Field (COE)
Event
- NTSB case
- WPR10FA459
- 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
Cessna T210N
- Aircraft type
- Cessna 210
- 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
- N111NA
- Operator
- Lamax Construction
- Onboard fatalities
- Unknown
- Route
- From South Big Horn County Airport (GEY), Greybull, WYTo Coeur D'Alene Airport - Pappy Boyington Field (COE), Coeur d'Alene, 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
- Maneuvering
- Defining eventThe 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
- Controlled flight into terrain/object (CFIT)
- 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
- Aircraft › Aircraft oper/perf/capability
- Environmental issues › Physical environment
- Personnel issues › Action/decision
Approximate · Coordinates as recorded by the NTSB; no uncertainty radius is established.
NTSB narrative
During a cross-country flight, the airplane collided with mountainous terrain at an elevation of 3,300 feet mean sea level (msl). Radar data initially identified the flight at 12,000 feet msl on a direct path to the pilot’s planned destination. About 20 miles southeast of the airport, the track indicated a descending left turn to the west-southwest followed by multiple 360 degree turns. The track then proceeded northeast over mountainous terrain, climbing and descending between 3,300 and 3,600 feet msl. The track indicated multiple 180-degree turns before the radar data terminated in the general vicinity where the wreckage was located. Around the time of the accident, reported weather at the destination airport (14 miles north) included cloud layers at 3,900 feet and 6,500 feet. The pilot did not hold an instrument rating, and it is likely that he was maneuvering around weather when the collision occurred. The pilot did not obtain a flight service station (FSS) weather briefing for the flight. A postaccident examination of the airframe and engine revealed no evidence of preimpact mechanical failures or malfunctions.
Probable cause
The pilot’s continued flight into instrument meteorological conditions and failure to maintain clearance with mountainous terrain while maneuvering in an area of low cloud ceilings.
Verbatim NTSB analysis and probable cause from the NTSB dataset
Sources
NTSB record WPR10FA459
- Event ID
- 20100917X34608
- Case number
- WPR10FA459
- Dataset
- full-current
- Source SHA-256
- 5cf380f0061817c0331a6b2d8cc7e0ee3a79bea469a1001dc5c10e56f35f5ab3
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: 524674e328865f9a1436ae639ae0e3005db53e979d61f2aa4bedcdda970c83f8; retrieved 2026-09-13T21:03:15.675Z.