Camai Air Cessna 207A accident
Cessna 207A · Accident: in flight encounter with weather en route
From Robert (Bob) Curtis Memorial Airport (ORV) to Ralph Wien Memorial Airport (OTZ)
Event
- NTSB case
- ANC99FA047
- 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
- 1 · all aircraft and ground
- Ground fatalities
- 0
- 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
- Charter & commuter
- 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
Cessna 207A
- Aircraft type
- Cessna 207
- 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
- N73188
- Operator
- Camai Air
- Onboard fatalities
- Unknown
- Route
- From Robert (Bob) Curtis Memorial Airport (ORV), Noorvik, AKTo Ralph Wien Memorial Airport (OTZ)
- 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 135: Air Taxi & Commuter
- 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 · cruise
- First occurrenceThe 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
- In flight encounter with weather
- Also codedOther events the NTSB coded in the sequence, such as a wire strike after a loss of power. Flight Findings uses them for its kinds of event. Glossary
- Visual flight rules (VFR) flight into instrument meteorological conditions (IMC)
- 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
No findings designated as a cause are recorded in the NTSB data yet.
Approximate · Coordinates as recorded by the NTSB; no uncertainty radius is established.
NTSB narrative
The certificated airline transport pilot departed on a flight to a remote village about 37 miles away. The trip was the first since an annual inspection had been completed the day before. The pilot departed with fuel only in the left wing tank. The right wing tank was empty. About 35 minutes later, the pilot was on a return flight to his original departure airport that was within Class E airspace. During the pilot's absence, the airport visibility had decreased to 1 1/2 mile. Instrument meteorological conditions, and special VFR procedures were in use. A 'MAYDAY' was heard over the common traffic advisory frequency, and was monitored by the local flight service station. The voice of the pilot was recognized as the accident pilot. Search personnel found the airplane on a flat area of a frozen, snow-covered lagoon. The weather at the accident site was described as fog, with flat lighting conditions. The wreckage path was oriented away from higher terrain around the destination airport which is located on a peninsula. The airplane had crashed in a nose down attitude, and came to rest inverted. The engine separated completely from the airframe. An examination of the engine revealed fuel throughout, and mechanical continuity. The vacuum pump's internal support post, on which the internal block rotated, was found fractured through 70 percent of its diameter from fatigue, the remaining portion of fracture was overstress. The airplane was equipped with a standby vacuum system. An examination of the airframe located a combination screwdriver in the left wing. The handle was shattered. No flight control cable impingement was observed.
Probable cause
The pilot's continued VFR flight into instrument meteorological conditions, spatial disorientation, and an inadvertent stall. Factors in the accident were weather conditions consisting of snow and mist, and flat lighting conditions.
Verbatim NTSB analysis and probable cause from the NTSB dataset
Sources
NTSB record ANC99FA047
- Event ID
- 20001205X00398
- Case number
- ANC99FA047
- Dataset
- historical-pre2008
- Source SHA-256
- 89e2df6d848e7ab3b42e7d7c7a03ff403303057a26ca04c95b3ea67201c3ce74
Source notes (5)
- 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: 038ef8af926a199cec1c33224a73518353411405dd5ebcb4c379c51fb8134b53; retrieved 2026-09-18T13:18:59.373Z.
- The NTSB's operator name is blank for N73188; the operator shown is the name the NTSB records it doing business as.