1969 Cascade Airways accident
Beech 99 · The 1969 Cascade Airways accident occurred on 20 June 1969
From Tri Cities Airport (PSC) to Spokane International Airport (GEG)
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
- 2 · all aircraft and ground
- Ground fatalities
- 0
- Occupants
- Unknown
- 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
- 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
Beech 99
- Aircraft type
- Beechcraft 99
- 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
- N2550A
- Operator
- Cascade Airways
- Onboard fatalities
- Unknown
- Route
- From Tri Cities Airport (PSC)To Spokane International Airport (GEG)
- 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 137: Agricultural aircraft (aerial applicator)
- 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
- Initial climb
- 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
- Stall
- 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
- Pilot in command › Inadequate preflight preparation and/or planning
Approximate · Estimated position: the centre of Pasco, WA, the place the record names. Not the accident site.
From the Wikipedia article
The 1969 Cascade Airways accident occurred on 20 June 1969. On this day a Beechcraft Model 99 was to operate a flight from Pasco to Spokane within the US state of Washington when the aircraft crashed to the ground immediately after takeoff, killing its only two occupants.
Accident sequence
The aircraft, which had arrived in Spokane that day on a scheduled cargo flight, was to fly a training flight from Pasco to Spokane that day. Immediately after takeoff, the aircraft climbed into the air at a steep pitch angle. In the process the angle of attack also increased, until the aircraft stalled and crashed near the airport. On impact at 15:05 local time there was a massive explosion; both pilots died.
Investigation and cause
Cause
The National Transportation Safety Board (NTSB) took over the investigation after the crash. The investigators blamed the captain for having carried out the flight preparation improperly and for having operated the flight controls incorrectly. It was found that the Flettner tab had been trimmed to its end position, so that the aircraft's nose was pitched up to the maximum. In addition, the seat adjustment of the captain's pilot seat was found in its end position. This suggested that the seat had not been locked, had moved during takeoff, and the captain was consequently no longer able to reach the controls in the cockpit as intended.
Translated into English with AI assistance from the German Wikipedia article “Flugunfall der Cascade Airways 1969” (revision 252303565, retrieved 2026-09-19) by its authors, under CC BY-SA 4.0. Extracted as plain text: references, tables, images and some sections are left out; the translation may contain errors, and long articles were cut to their first 700 words. Read the article
NTSB remarks
PITCHED UP STEEPLY AFTER T/O.PITCH TRIM FOUND INFULL NOSE UP POSITION.PIC SEAT UNLOCKED,FULL AFT.
NTSB's remark from its 1962–1981 archive, as recorded (abbreviated, at most 98 characters): the archive has no narrative
Sources
German Wikipedia article: Flugunfall der Cascade Airways 1969
- Translation
- Into English with AI assistance; names of linked operators and aircraft types from Wikidata. It may contain errors.
- Revision
- 252303565 · 2025-01-16 · retrieved 2026-09-19
- Wikidata
- Q98609830
- 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
- 19690620P032304
- Case number
- Unknown
- Dataset
- historical-pre1982
- Source SHA-256
- abe1a933b4b73583d61684309f7f0610c281e3c1de3537c6471bf2a98ba6481d
Where each value comes from
- Record
- de Wikipedia article "Flugunfall der Cascade Airways 1969" (page 11412494, revision 252303565), translated into English with AI assistance; merged with NTSB case NTSB19690620P032304 (PRE1982 tblFirstHalf (one row per aircraft, grouped by date, place and time))
- Date
- NTSB record NTSB19690620P032304: PRE1982 DATE_OCCURRENCE
- Place and country
- Wikipedia infobox: site; country from NTSB record NTSB19690620P032304
- Map position
- NTSB record NTSB19690620P032304: centre of the town the record names (GeoNames, CC BY 4.0)
- Aircraft, operator and route
- NTSB record NTSB19690620P032304: 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 NTSB19690620P032304: operated under Part 137: Agricultural aircraft (aerial applicator)
- Fatalities
- NTSB record NTSB19690620P032304: PRE1982 TOTAL_ABRD_FATAL of each aircraft, plus people on the ground and others outside the aircraft
- Ground fatalities
- NTSB record NTSB19690620P032304: events.inj_f_grnd
- Summary
- Wikipedia article lead
Source notes (4)
- One occurrence in two sources, merged: the Wikipedia article "1969 Cascade Airways accident" and NTSB case NTSB19690620P032304, 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.