Yute Air Alaska Piper PA-31-350 accident
Piper PA-31-350 · Accident: overrun during landing
From Bethel Airport (BET) to Chevak Airport (VAK)
Event
- NTSB case
- ANC99LA045
- 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
- 0 · 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
- Visual Meteorological Cond
Piper PA-31-350
- Aircraft type
- Piper PA-31
- 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
- N59985
- Operator
- Yute Air Alaska
- Onboard fatalities
- Unknown
- Route
- From Bethel Airport (BET), Bethel, AKTo Chevak Airport (VAK)
- 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
- Landing · landing roll
- 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
- Overrun
- DamageDestroyed: beyond practical repair. Substantial: damage that affects the structure, performance or handling and normally needs major repair. Minor: less than that. Glossary
- Substantial
Cause areas
- Pilot in command › In-flight planning/decision, inadequate
- Pilot in command › Proper touchdown point, not attained
Approximate · Coordinates as recorded by the NTSB; no uncertainty radius is established.
NTSB narrative
The certificated airline transport pilot was landing at a remote airport with a load of cargo and mail. The runway was covered by packed snow and ice. The pilot elected to land with a 20 knot quartering tail wind to avoid having to turn around on the runway in an area of snow and ice. The ramp area of the airport was located at the departure end of runway. After touchdown, the runway surface and the end of the runway, became obscured by blowing snow which restricted the visibility to 400 to 500 feet. The pilot said he applied the brakes, but the airplane began skidding on the ice, and went off the departure end of the runway. The right main landing gear was sheared off. The left main landing gear collapsed, and the left wing struck the ground. The left wing was wrinkled, and fuel was seeping from the left wing fuel tank.
Probable cause
The pilot's inadequate in-flight planning/decision, and his failure to attain the proper touchdown point on the runway. Factors in the accident were a tail wind condition, and the presence of snow and ice on the runway surface.
Verbatim NTSB analysis and probable cause from the NTSB dataset
Sources
NTSB record ANC99LA045
- Event ID
- 20001205X00404
- Case number
- ANC99LA045
- 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: e3df76e50a57cfd06d4c29f6399929952c4111ae501af2fc7191f25646aacbd1; retrieved 2026-09-18T16:57:24.020Z.
- The NTSB's operator name is blank for N59985; the operator shown is the name the NTSB's other records give its FAA operator code, YAAA.