Early Analysis: Cessna 421 Crash Near Portland, OR

On August 31, 2024, a Cessna 421C Golden Eagle crashed near Troutdale-Portland Airport (KTTD) in Oregon, after the pilot lost control of the twin-engine aircraft.

Sadly, the pilot and passenger on board the aircraft and a person on the ground perished in the accident.

The Cessna pilot had taken off intending to stay in the traffic pattern for what appears to have been a test flight after maintenance. During the short flight, the pilot experienced problems handling the Cessna before it crashed into power lines and then into a townhome community near the airport.

In Early Analysis: Cessna 421 Crash Near Portland, Oregon, the AOPA Air Safety Institute makes a preliminary assessment of the accident, addressing notable portions of the tragic flight and highlighting areas the NTSB will likely investigate to determine a probable cause.

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[joshwilliams]

Kind of hard to watch for a few reasons... heart goes out to the pilot and passenger... As for the Air Safety Institute I miss Richard McSpadden but am glad these analysis' are continuing...

[SchlichteToven]

The man in this video has the perfect speaking voice for this subject.

[miggit]

The flight instructor Jackie lived right behind me in AZ with her daughter. Rest in Peace Jackie

[wjatube]

The physical exertion in his voice coupled with unable to control sounds like trim run away.

[timhoeffken]

I knew the pilot. He just survived a heart attack a few months ago. Its the reason the plane sat in troutdale for 6 months

[gregmagnuson]

The pilot is unsure of what he wants to do - from beginning to end. That and the control issue make this a nightmare scenario. Better to talk yourself out of something than to talk yourself into something.

[TimKaseyMythHealer]

I tried to recreate this crash in Microsoft Flight Simulator with a twin prop at the Troutdale airport. It's as if the trim settings were set the way they were 6 months prior, for landing. When you do this, the trim will be too much downward trim, and if you set it for a 10mph cross wind, the rudder trim will be off to one side. It makes the entire fligth awkward. You may be able to climb if the plane is strait, but if you turn left or right you are going down without the ability to pull up to maintain altitude. If the trim settings were never set back to neutral after the landing 6 months ago, and you take off with an additional cross wind from some other direction, the complexity in knowing how to properly make the trim setting corrections can only be accomplished by a master pilot with 5, 000 feet altitude (enough time) to get it figured out. Arguing tone with the pilot: "Are you going to do the pattern or not?" and "drop altitude now" these demands with a plane out of control, and in need of more altitude to give the pilot more time to figure things out added up to the disaster. Also, they should make it a policy to only fly east over the Columbia River, gaining altitude up to 5, 000 feet to insure they have enough time to compensate for trim calibration errors. Just because the trim is set to zero doesn't mean its not with a 3-degree left rudder, and/or 5 degrees down aileron. Also, the trim has a friction control that if not set properly, the trim settings will slip. You can set the "upness" for take off, gain altitude, and if it slipped durring the climb, and you change your flaps from 20 degrees back to zero flaps, you will descend, and if the trim has slipped and you don't know it has slipped, and don't have enough altitude to figure it out, and the control tower is making demands upon you to drop altitude, you're not going to make it. Oh, did I mention you've got 15 seconds to figure out the problem, make the adjustments, and rise to a safe altitude?

[ImpactWench]

Anyone else get the impression the pilot was not all there to start out with?

[wbanp]

My thought on the passenger on the plane, since it was a maintenance flight, she could have been a represtantive for the facility or the actual technician, My shop I used to work for would either have a lead technician or the DM go on the test flight.

[j_taylor]

Thank you for continuing these analyses. Those are some pretty big questions to answer.

[documax]

Those communications were very troubling. ATC good though.

[rl]

The victims were pilot Michael Busher, 73; flight instructor Jacqueline Whitford, 79; and Fairview resident Barbara MacDonald, 75. The plane crashed into a row of eight townhomes in Fairview, destroying three of them.

[chrisgattman]

I live on the very end of the gorge. Air traffic from the Troutdale airport often fly right over my house. I was mowing the lawn and had I looked up I would have seen the plane. His flt plan according to this video was right over my house. I did hear a loud boom and then a huge black cloud of smoke. My son is a ground/flight instructor at Troutdale. Profitable employment but can be very dangerous. Id rather see him driving school buses.

[rangerider]

The pilot was a 73 old man and the flight instructor was a 79 year old woman. The lady that was in the house was 75 years old and sleeping upstairs.

[dermick]

Thanks for the analysis. Post maintenance flights and flights after an aircraft has not been flown for months can be very risky. I hope that everyone did what they could to avoid this crash since this sadly took three lives, including one completely uninvolved person on the ground. A tragic reminder for all of us to take care and do careful preflights.

[IslandSimPilot]

First flight after maintenance is not for a pilot who is clearly not familiar with the aircraft. This seems like a combined test flight/orientation flight with an experienced instructor and a pilot who was clearly in over his head from the second he stepped into the cockpit.

[jbsack]

If it was a mis rigged trim or runaway trim, would expect problems immediately on take off, which makes me think something else going on.

[annabodot]

Seems more info is needed to make a determination. Tragic outcome, even after we learn from it. And we learn from every mishap.

[Hugh]

Test flight in the air ok . Maybe check all functions on the ground . I’ll probably get hammered for this .

[junqueboi]

This was very well-presented. Thanks for just the facts!