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ANC97LA093 · Douglas DC-4

28 Jun 1997 · VENETIE, AK, United States

Hondu Carib Cargo Douglas DC-4 · Accident: fire en route

From Venetie Airport (VEE) to Fairbanks International Airport (FAI)

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Event

NTSB case
ANC97LA093
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
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

Douglas DC-4

Aircraft type
Douglas DC-4
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
N103
Onboard fatalities
Unknown
Route
From Venetie Airport (VEE)To Fairbanks International Airport (FAI), Fairbanks, 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
En route · climb to 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
Fire
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

  • Powerplant › Undetermined

Approximate · Coordinates as recorded by the NTSB; no uncertainty radius is established.

NTSB narrative

The air cargo flight had just off loaded its cargo at a remote site. Shortly after takeoff, the number two engine begin to run rough. The engine was shut down, and the propeller feathered. During the shutdown process, a fire warning light illuminated, and fire became visible near the number 2 engine. The crew activated both banks of engine fire extinguishers, but were unable to extinguish the fire. While on approach to an off-airport emergency landing site, the number two engine fell off and ignited a brush fire. The crew made a successful landing and ran away from the airplane. The airplane continued to burn and was destroyed by fire. The number 2 engine was not recovered or located.

Probable cause

A fire associated with the number 2 engine for undetermined reasons.

Verbatim NTSB analysis and probable cause from the NTSB dataset

Sources

NTSB record ANC97LA093
Event ID
20001208X08048
Case number
ANC97LA093
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 1997-06-29.
  • API snapshot SHA-256: 2f5b95ae69ee5be22fe7efd44f5535065ed8943daeb5e468a69ac4852a418577; retrieved 2026-09-22T19:19:52.539Z.