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Atlas / NTSB / SEA80FA004

NTSB CAROL · Event

Event SEA80FA004

1979-10-18 EPHRATA, Washington, United States Fatal 1 aircraft Status: Completed

Aircraft involved

Historical record (pre-1982)

NTSB recorded this accident in the pre-1982 coded-field schema — structured fields rather than free-text narrative. Decoded codes use established NTSB single-letter taxonomies; cause factors remain verbatim pending the Form 6120.4 codebook lookup.

Aircraft

CESSNA 177RG · N34948

Damage

Destroyed

Craft type

Airplane

Classification

Accident

Light condition

Dawn

Weather

IMC

Phase of flight

D2

Operator type

D

Airport

EPHRATA MUNI

Kind of flying

B0

Weather at impact

Sky

OVERCAST/LOWER SCATTERED

Temp

43° F

Aircraft history

Serial number

000177RG1029

Total time

382 hrs

Pilot

Certificate

Commercial — instrument

Total hours

800

Age

50

Probable cause (from PRE1982.MDB)

T AT EPHRATA,WA.

Investigator remarks

COLLIDED W HILL AT 2250FT MSL.CEILING APRX 2070F

Cause factors

  • 64/A/03 A
    PILOT IN COMMAND BECAME LOST/DISORIENTED Cause — pilot/personnel action
  • 64/A/04 A
    PILOT IN COMMAND CONTINUED VFR FLIGHT INTO ADVERSE WEATHER CONDITIONS Cause — pilot/personnel action
  • 82/J/A J
    WEATHER LOW CEILING Joint cause
  • 83/J/F J
    TERRAIN ROUGH/UNEVEN Joint cause

Decoded against the NTSB Form 6120.4 cause-factor codebook (ct_Pre1982 table). Each row shows the raw triplet, modifier (Cause / Factor / etc.), category, and specific code.

Source: NTSB pre-1982 historical archive. Docket 3 2987. Source file NTSB_1979_3_2987.txt. Modern CAROL record on data.ntsb.gov ↗.