ANC98GA036 · Cessna 185F
Alaska Native Health Service Cessna 185F · Accident: in flight encounter with weather
From Toksook Bay Airport (OOK) to Bethel Airport (BET)
Event
- NTSB case
- ANC98GA036
- 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
- 2 · 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
- Government
- 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 185F
- Aircraft type
- Cessna 185
- 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
- N5485R
- Operator
- Alaska Native Health Service
- Onboard fatalities
- Unknown
- Route
- From Toksook Bay Airport (OOK), Toksook Bay, AKTo Bethel Airport (BET), Bethel, 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
- Public Aircraft
- 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
- Unknown
- 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 encounter with weather
- 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 › Aircraft control, not maintained
- Pilot in command › Spatial disorientation
- Pilot in command › VFR flight into imc, continued
Approximate · Coordinates as recorded by the NTSB; no uncertainty radius is established.
NTSB narrative
The commercial pilot departed on a CFR Part 135/government flight for a remote coastal village to pick up the sole passenger. Just before landing at the village, light snow began to fall, and the wind conditions increased to about 20 knots. There was no evidence the pilot obtained a weather briefing. The area forecast included isolated ceilings below 1,000 feet, and visibilities below 3 miles in blowing snow and mist from offshore. The forecast wind conditions included 20 knots to 40 knots from offshore. Airmets were issued for moderate low level turbulence, mountain obscuration, strong surface winds along the coast, and moderate rime icing in clouds. When the airplane departed the village on the accident flight, a resident said the visibility was 1/4 to 1/2 mile in blowing snow. The flight did not reach the destination. The wreckage was located 8 miles away in snow covered terrain after two days of blizzard conditions. The airplane collided with the ground in a near vertical attitude, and exhibited high speed destruction. An examination of the engine did not reveal any preimpact malfunction. Evidence of engine combustion, heat, and rotation were noted during the engine examination.
Probable cause
The pilot's continued VFR flight into instrument meteorological conditions which resulted in spatial disorientation and subsequent loss of aircraft control. Factors in the accident were meteorological conditions consisting of low ceilings, and blowing snow, and the pilot's failure to obtain a preflight weather briefing.
Verbatim NTSB analysis and probable cause from the NTSB dataset
Sources
NTSB record ANC98GA036
- Event ID
- 20001211X09789
- Case number
- ANC98GA036
- 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 1998-04-09.
- API snapshot SHA-256: 93751f5d91230d3928c641c9ba3b9415d144537fe50bea5b34649142b247b807; retrieved 2026-09-18T14:36:56.877Z.