Peninsula Airways Cessna 208B incident
Cessna 208B · Incident: airframe, component or system failure on approach
From Bethel Airport (BET) to Z09
Event
- NTSB case
- ANC98IA004
- 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
- Incident
- 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 208B
- Aircraft type
- Cessna 208
- 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
- N9304F
- Operator
- Peninsula Airways
- Onboard fatalities
- Unknown
- Route
- From Bethel Airport (BET), Bethel, AKTo Z09
- 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
- Approach · VFR pattern downwind
- 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
- Airframe, component or system failure
- DamageDestroyed: beyond practical repair. Substantial: damage that affects the structure, performance or handling and normally needs major repair. Minor: less than that. Glossary
- None
Cause areas
- Company maintenance personnel › Maintenance, 100-hour inspection, inadequate
- Flight control, aileron › Jammed
- Pilot in command › Aircraft preflight, inadequate
Approximate · Coordinates as recorded by the NTSB; no uncertainty radius is established.
NTSB narrative
The pilot was entering a left downwind for landing at a remote airport. The wind conditions were 25 knots with gusts to 35 knots. During the turn, the pilot utilized full aileron deflection, and noticed the aileron momentarily jammed. He was able to force the control wheel to the right, unjamming the aileron. After landing, the pilot began to taxi to the ramp. Due to a strong crosswind, the pilot deflected the ailerons fully to the left. The aileron once again jammed, and the pilot was unable to force the control wheel to the right. The airplane's ailerons utilize balance weights that are attached to the interior surface of the leading edge of the aileron. Five screws are inserted through the leading edge skin of the aileron, through the balance weight, and into self-locking nuts attached to a nut strip assembly. Company maintenance personnel reported 1 screw was missing. Three of the remaining 4 screws were loose, and backed out sufficient distance to contact the trailing edge of the wing, forward of the aileron. The left aileron was jammed in a full, leading edge down, position. The Cessna 208B pilot information manual details a preflight inspection that includes an examination of the ailerons as part of a walk-around inspection of the airplane. In addition, the balance weights should be inspected during every 100-hour inspection. A review of the manufacturer's service condition report data base, and the Federal Aviation Administration malfunction and defect report system did not reveal any other reported incidents of aileron jamming.
Probable cause
inadequate inspection of the aileron by company maintenance personnel, and the pilot's inadequate preflight inspection of the aileron, which led to the jamming of the left aileron due to loose balance weight retaining screws.
Verbatim NTSB analysis and probable cause from the NTSB dataset
Sources
NTSB record ANC98IA004
- Event ID
- 20001208X08942
- Case number
- ANC98IA004
- 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, damage. 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: 3ccfe8aa8640f299b987d46cb1ad85a4e935088e019bbfbd7fde5975f9899209; retrieved 2026-09-18T17:20:15.539Z.