Baker Aviation Cessna 208 accident
Cessna 208 · Accident: in flight collision with terrain/water while maneuvering
From Ralph Wien Memorial Airport (OTZ) to Nome Airport (OME)
Event
- NTSB case
- ANC98FA046
- 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 208
- 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
- N192AV
- Operator
- Baker Aviation
- Onboard fatalities
- Unknown
- Route
- From Ralph Wien Memorial Airport (OTZ), Kotzebue, AKTo Nome Airport (OME)
- 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
- 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
- Substantial
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 nine passengers departed on a scheduled VFR commuter flight for a destination about 160 miles south of the departure airport. The terminal forecast for the destination airport, located in Class E airspace, was indicating a visibility greater than six miles, with scattered clouds at 2,500 feet. Temporary conditions included a visibility of five miles in light rain and snow, with broken clouds at 2,000 feet. While enroute, an obscured ceiling began to lower, and the pilot said he descended to 1,000 feet msl. The pilot said the visibility decreased to between three to four miles, and he began to follow a road toward the destination. About six miles north of the destination, the pilot obtained an airport advisory. The weather conditions at the destination airport were one mile visibility in light snow and mist, and a ceiling of 1,000 feet broken. The pilot requested a Special VFR clearance. As the in-flight visibility decreased to 1 mile, the pilot said he decided to begin a right turn back to an area of better visibility. During the turn, he said he entered white-out conditions. He leveled the wings of the airplane, and applied engine power to begin a climb. The airplane then collided with snow covered terrain, about 850 feet msl. The location of the accident is about 1 mile north of the Class E airspace.
Probable cause
The pilot's continued VFR flight into instrument meteorological conditions. Factors in the accident were low ceilings, whiteout conditions, and snow covered terrain.
Verbatim NTSB analysis and probable cause from the NTSB dataset
Sources
NTSB record ANC98FA046
- Event ID
- 20001211X09964
- Case number
- ANC98FA046
- 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: 6d6e93199f6c64612689a7a71d44944ae6511cae13443f11ec66d7bb83277135; retrieved 2026-09-18T17:09:26.158Z.