Jim Air Cessna 206G accident
Cessna 206G · Accident: in flight collision with terrain/water while maneuvering
From MAIN BAY, AK to Lake Hood Airport (Z41)
Event
- NTSB case
- ANC96LA051
- 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
- Instrument Meteorological Cond
Cessna 206G
- 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
- N244PL
- Operator
- Jim Air
- Onboard fatalities
- Unknown
- Route
- From MAIN BAY, AKTo Lake Hood Airport (Z41), Anchorage, 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
- 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
- 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
- Pilot in command › VFR flight into imc, continued
Approximate · Coordinates as recorded by the NTSB; no uncertainty radius is established.
NTSB narrative
The certificated airline transport pilot and a passenger were attempting to cross a glacier covered mountain pass during a VFR on-demand charter flight in a single engine amphibious float equipped airplane. The pilot had flown the same route several times throughout the day and planned to take a look at the weather conditions to assess the feasibility of crossing the pass. As the flight approached the pass, the visibility began decreasing in light rain drizzle and haze. The pilot began to turn away from the pass but then recognized a known glacier, about 2 miles from his position. The airplane then entered a whiteout condition. The pilot indicated that he lowered the wing flaps and entered a 40 degree bank to the right to begin a 180 degree turn away from the pass. About 2 seconds later, the airplane collided with snow covered terrain. The passenger reported that as the flight approached the pass, the forward visibility decreased to zero in clouds. The airplane collided with rising terrain to the left of the pass area.
Probable cause
The pilot's continued VFR flight into instrument meteorological conditions. Factors in the accident were low ceilings and whiteout conditions.
Verbatim NTSB analysis and probable cause from the NTSB dataset
Sources
NTSB record ANC96LA051
- Event ID
- 20001208X05499
- Case number
- ANC96LA051
- 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: 0619d0b20dc27f4c90a45b3a73fcfc49ee9623c247cc5b5d334dab73b50a8f66; retrieved 2026-09-18T17:51:55.502Z.
- The NTSB's operator name is blank for N244PL; the operator shown is the name the NTSB records it doing business as.