Yute Air Alaska Cessna 207A accident
Cessna 207A · Accident: in flight collision with terrain/water while maneuvering
From 17Z · MANAKOTAK, AK to Togiak Airport (TOG)
Event
- NTSB case
- ANC97FA155
- 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
- 1 · 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 207A
- Aircraft type
- Cessna 207
- 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
- N9984M
- Operator
- Yute Air Alaska
- Onboard fatalities
- Unknown
- Route
- From 17Z · MANAKOTAK, AKTo Togiak Airport (TOG), Togiak, 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 · turn to reverse direction
- 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 › Altitude, inadequate
- Pilot in command › In-flight planning/decision, improper
Approximate · Coordinates as recorded by the NTSB; no uncertainty radius is established.
NTSB narrative
The flight departed with 180 pounds of cargo after deplaning a passenger. Three company pilots overheard the accident pilot report that he was 13 minutes from his destination. The overdue aircraft was located by company airplanes about 700 feet MSL, on the east (downwind) side of an 890 feet msl pass. The airplane impacted on a 330 degree heading and perpendicular to the axis of the canyon/pass (oriented east-west), in a flat attitude, with no ground scars leading to the wreckage. No anomalies were found with the airplane, and all blades on the propeller exhibited torsional twisting and leading edge gouging. A westerly wind of seven to nine knots existed and numerous pilots reported the mountain passes were not obscured by clouds. Photographs from the pilot's camera depicted views of the accident canyon, with the pass and accident site above the altitude from which the photographs were taken. These photographs contained the date of the accident. Numerous depressant and stimulant, over-the-counter cold and asthma medications were found in the pilot's flight bag. Toxicological tests detected several over-the counter medications used for cold and asthma symptoms with illness effect of distraction or sensory disturbance. As a result of the condition for which the drugs were ingested may have also played a role in the accident.
Probable cause
Improper in-flight planning/decision by the pilot, and his failure to maintain sufficient altitude over mountainous terrain. Factors related to the accident were downdraft conditions, mountainous/hilly terrain, and the use of over-the-counter medications.
Verbatim NTSB analysis and probable cause from the NTSB dataset
Sources
NTSB record ANC97FA155
- Event ID
- 20001208X08759
- Case number
- ANC97FA155
- 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: 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: 0a7c13fae1d71defd98fea0c9ef01436063a0c2e81f6b60a6416b36f10c56285; retrieved 2026-09-18T13:28:12.465Z.