ANC95FA129 · Cessna 170
Cessna 170 · Accident: in flight collision with terrain/water while maneuvering
From Coldfoot Airport (CXF) to Happy Valley, AK
Event
- NTSB case
- ANC95FA129
- 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
- 2 · 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
- 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
Cessna 170
- Aircraft type
- Cessna 170
- 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
- N2566V
- Operator
- Unknown
- Onboard fatalities
- Unknown
- Route
- From Coldfoot Airport (CXF), AKTo Happy Valley, AK
- 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 91: General Aviation
- 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
- Maneuvering
- 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 collision with terrain/water
- 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 › Distance/altitude, not maintained
Approximate · Coordinates as recorded by the NTSB; no uncertainty radius is established.
NTSB narrative
THE CERTIFICATED PRIVATE PILOT AND A PASSENGER WERE FLYING NORTHBOUND THROUGH A REMOTE MOUNTAIN PASS TOWARD RAPIDLY RISING TERRAIN. THEY WERE FOLLOWING A ROADWAY THAT PARALLELED THE TRANS-ALASKAN PIPELINE. BEFORE DEPARTING ON THE FLIGHT, THE PILOT WAS ADVISED BY A STATE TROOPER AND A LOCAL RESIDENT THAT FLIGHT THROUGH THE PASS WAS NOT ADVISED. THEY SUGGESTED AN ALTERNATIVE ROUTE OVER THE MOUNTAIN RANGE. THERE WERE NO WITNESSES TO THE ACCIDENT. THE WRECKAGE WAS OBSERVED BURNING ADJACENT TO THE ROADWAY ABOUT 4,500 FEET MEAN SEA LEVEL. WEATHER CONDITIONS AT THE PASS WERE REPORTED AS ABOUT 1,000 FEET OVERCAST, 15 TO 20 KNOTS OF WIND FROM THE NORTH, WITH ISOLATED RAIN AND SNOW SHOWERS MOVING THROUGH THE AREA.
Probable cause
THE PILOT'S FAILURE TO MAINTAIN ADEQUATE DISTANCE AND/OR ALTITUDE FROM TERRAIN. RISING MOUNTAINOUS TERRAIN AND DOWNDRAFTS ASSOCIATED WITH UNFAVORABLE WIND CONDITIONS WERE FACTORS IN THE ACCIDENT.
Verbatim NTSB analysis and probable cause from the NTSB dataset
Sources
NTSB record ANC95FA129
- Event ID
- 20001207X04114
- Case number
- ANC95FA129
- Dataset
- historical-pre2008
- Source SHA-256
- 89e2df6d848e7ab3b42e7d7c7a03ff403303057a26ca04c95b3ea67201c3ce74
Source notes (4)
- 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: local date, investigation status. Values present in the bulk record are kept.
- The date is the local date; the NTSB stores the UTC date 1995-08-05.
- API snapshot SHA-256: 45b081f26777b3a2020fe3e8469fa38642489dcbc5feedbc9d6fdbfd47e434ec; retrieved 2026-09-20T23:40:35.721Z.