Baker Aviation Flight 422
Cessna U206G · Accident: on ground/water collision with terrain/water during takeoff
From Selawik Airport (WLK) to Ralph Wien Memorial Airport (OTZ)
Event
- NTSB case
- ANC96LA021
- 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
Cessna U206G
- Aircraft type
- Cessna 206
- 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
- N5293X
- Operator
- Baker Aviation
- Onboard fatalities
- Unknown
- Route
- From Selawik Airport (WLK)To Ralph Wien Memorial Airport (OTZ), Kotzebue, 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 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
- Takeoff · rejected takeoff
- 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
- On ground/water 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
- Substantial
Cause areas
- Pilot in command › Aircraft preflight, inadequate
Approximate · Coordinates as recorded by the NTSB; no uncertainty radius is established.
NTSB narrative
The pilot reported the airplane was just at rotation speed when he heard an unusual noise and elected to abort the takeoff. He was unable to stop the airplane on the remaining runway, and attempted to turn the airplane onto an intersecting runway. The airplane was unable to make the turn, and collided with a snowbank. The pilot believes the noise he heard came from an either an unsecured cargo or passenger door.
Probable cause
The pilot's inadequate preflight of the airplane by failing to ensure that all the airplane's doors were properly closed. A factor associated with the accident is an open door.
Verbatim NTSB analysis and probable cause from the NTSB dataset
Sources
NTSB record ANC96LA021
- Event ID
- 20001207X04938
- Case number
- ANC96LA021
- 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: 14684bbe0fc8756ea6284723f4a3af8386a6f1a5b282cdd28561d8d725a84843; retrieved 2026-09-18T17:55:46.904Z.
- The NTSB's operator name is blank for N5293X; the operator shown is the name the NTSB's other records give its FAA operator code, BAJA.