West Coast Airlines Flight 720
Fairchild F-27 · Icing
From Crater Lake-Klamath Regional Airport (LMT) to Seattle–Tacoma International Airport (SEA)
Event
- 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
- Unknown
- Event fatalities
- 4 · all aircraft and ground
- Ground fatalities
- 0
- Occupants
- 4
- Survivors
- 0
- InjuriesFatal: death within 30 days. Serious: over 48 hours in hospital within a week, most broken bones, severe bleeding, nerve or organ damage, or serious burns. Minor: anything less. Glossary
- 0 serious · 0 minor (NTSB)
- 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
- Airline
- 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
Fairchild F-27
- Aircraft type
- Fairchild F-27
- 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
- N2712
- Operator
- West Coast Airlines
- Onboard fatalities
- Unknown
- Route
- From Crater Lake-Klamath Regional Airport (LMT)To Seattle–Tacoma International Airport (SEA)
- 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 121: Air carrier (scheduled domestic passenger service)
- 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
- 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
- Uncontrolled collision with ground/water
- 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
- Miscellaneous acts, conditions › Airframe ice
- Miscellaneous › Written cause
- Pilot in command › Inadequate preflight preparation and/or planning
Approximate · Coordinates from the Wikipedia article; not checked against an investigation report.
From the Wikipedia article
West Coast Airlines Flight 720 was a scheduled passenger flight in the northwest United States from Klamath Falls, Oregon to Seattle, Washington, with intermediate stops at Medford, Eugene and Portland, Oregon. On March 10, 1967, it crashed shortly after takeoff from Klamath Falls, killing all three crew members and the flight's lone passenger.
Investigation and cause
Cause and investigation
At 5:09 a.m., a report reached the tower that an aircraft had crashed on Stukel Mountain. The runway tracks were observed in heavy snow, and the plane had swerved to the left on the runway before becoming airborne. By takeoff, the left gear was 12 ft off the runway.
Several witnesses in the vicinity saw the airplane flying low and saw or heard a large explosion. All reported snow at the time of the crash.
The aircraft was equipped with a flight data recorder (FDR). Although the FDR was damaged in the crash, its recording medium could be read. The aircraft was reported to have climbed for approximately one minute after takeoff. Throughout the flight, the aircraft was recorded to have continued a turn to the left of the assigned heading. Shortly before impact, the aircraft began a sharp turn to the left, toward the mountain, at heading of 042 degrees.
The aircraft was equipped with a cockpit voice recorder (CVR). Although the device was damaged, the recording was intact. The crew reported a loss of control before impact and reported that they could not see the mountain. An expletive was uttered just before impact.
The aircraft was observed accumulating ice and snow on its control surfaces prior to takeoff and when moved out of the hangar. The investigation concluded that the failure of the crew to de-ice the plane was the cause of the accident. Given the crew's short turnaround schedule, fatigue was suggested as a contributing factor.
Text from the Wikipedia article “West Coast Airlines Flight 720” (revision 1339309552, retrieved 2026-09-18) by its authors, under CC BY-SA 4.0. Extracted as plain text: references, tables, images and some sections are left out. Read the article
NTSB remarks
ICE NOT REMOVD,DEICE FLUID NOT APPLIED PRIOR T/OMISC-CONTROL LOSS DUE TO ICE ACCRETION ON AIRFRAME
NTSB's remark from its 1962–1981 archive, as recorded (abbreviated, at most 98 characters): the archive has no narrative
Sources
Wikipedia article: West Coast Airlines Flight 720
- Revision
- 1339309552 · 2026-02-19 · retrieved 2026-09-18
- Wikidata
- Q7984794
- Licence
- Text CC BY-SA 4.0, by the article's authors; Wikidata CC0; town positions GeoNames (CC BY 4.0)
NTSB record
- Event ID
- 19670310P016868
- Case number
- Unknown
- Dataset
- historical-pre1982
- Source SHA-256
- abe1a933b4b73583d61684309f7f0610c281e3c1de3537c6471bf2a98ba6481d
Where each value comes from
- Record
- Wikipedia article "West Coast Airlines Flight 720" (page 31479797, revision 1339309552); merged with NTSB case NTSB19670310P016868 (PRE1982 tblFirstHalf (one row per aircraft, grouped by date, place and time))
- Date
- NTSB record NTSB19670310P016868: PRE1982 DATE_OCCURRENCE
- Place and country
- Wikipedia infobox: site; country from NTSB record NTSB19670310P016868
- Map position
- Wikipedia: Wikipedia article coordinates
- Aircraft, operator and route
- NTSB record NTSB19670310P016868: PRE1982 REGIST_NO, ACFT_MAKE, ACFT_MODEL; gaps from Wikipedia infobox: aircraft type, registration, operator, origin and destination; route airports from the linked airport articles' Wikidata codes (OurAirports)
- Operation
- NTSB record NTSB19670310P016868: operated under Part 121: Air carrier (scheduled domestic passg.svc)
- Fatalities
- NTSB record NTSB19670310P016868: PRE1982 TOTAL_ABRD_FATAL of each aircraft, plus people on the ground and others outside the aircraft
- Ground fatalities
- NTSB record NTSB19670310P016868: events.inj_f_grnd
- Summary
- Wikipedia infobox: summary
Source notes (4)
- One occurrence in two sources, merged: the Wikipedia article "West Coast Airlines Flight 720" and NTSB case NTSB19670310P016868, matched by the same aircraft registration and date. For this US event the NTSB's values are used where the two differ; each value names its source.
- From NTSB's 1962-1981 archive (PRE1982), which holds at most a short remark (98 characters, abbreviated) instead of a narrative; the accident type, phase of flight, causes and conditions are NTSB's codes, decoded as the archive defines them.
- Reviewed means this record passed the site's consistency check, not that it was checked against a narrative or report - there is none to check against.
- The operation category is mapped from the archive's operator and operation codes and has not been reviewed.