GAA18CA145 · Piper PA28R 200
Walla Walla University Piper PA28R 200 · Accident: controlled flight into terrain/object (CFIT) while maneuvering
From Walla Walla Regional Airport (ALW) to Walla Walla Regional Airport (ALW)
Event
- NTSB case
- GAA18CA145
- 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
Piper PA28R 200
- Aircraft type
- Piper PA28
- 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
- N323MQ
- Operator
- Walla Walla University
- Onboard fatalities
- Unknown
- Route
- From Walla Walla Regional Airport (ALW), Walla Walla, WATo Walla Walla Regional Airport (ALW), Walla Walla, WA
- Aircraft age
- About 44 years (built 1974)
- 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
- Personnel issues › Action/decision
- Personnel issues › Task performance
Approximate · Coordinates as recorded by the NTSB; no uncertainty radius is established.
NTSB narrative
The flight instructor reported that, after conducting flight maneuvers during an instructional flight, he and the pilot receiving instruction proceeded to sightsee around mountainous terrain at 800 to 1,000 ft above ground level. He added that, after the pilot receiving instruction maneuvered around rising terrain, the airplane was moving toward "fairly significant" terrain. The flight instructor reported that "it was assumed" that the airplane had the necessary performance to climb over the rising terrain ahead, but he soon realized that the airplane was in a "box canyon" and would not be able to climb above the rising terrain. The flight instructor took the flight controls, "pitched the aircraft up to stall speed," and the airplane impacted trees.
The airplane sustained substantial damage to the right wing.
The flight instructor reported that there were no preaccident mechanical failures or malfunctions with the airplane that would have precluded normal operation.
Probable cause
The pilot receiving instruction’s and flight instructor’s improper decision to enter a canyon surrounded by steep rising terrain and their subsequent failure to maintain clearance from terrain while maneuvering at a low altitude.
Verbatim NTSB analysis and probable cause from the NTSB dataset
Sources
NTSB record GAA18CA145
- Event ID
- 20180301X55111
- Case number
- GAA18CA145
- 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: 7c7cfd6430b56c41ea0f46025b0b2f49cc2d97136bc0788fef6df5e05176beb1; retrieved 2026-09-16T06:32:58.829Z.