ANC98LA055 · Douglas DC-3C
Galaxy Air Cargo Douglas DC-3C · Accident: total loss of engine power (non-mechanical) on approach
From Unalakleet Airport (UNK) to Ted Stevens Anchorage International Airport (ANC)
Event
- NTSB case
- ANC98LA055
- 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-3C
- Aircraft type
- Douglas DC-3
- 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
- N67588
- Operator
- Galaxy Air Cargo
- Onboard fatalities
- Unknown
- Route
- From Unalakleet Airport (UNK), Unalakleet, AKTo Ted Stevens Anchorage International Airport (ANC)
- 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
- Approach · VFR pattern final
- 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
- Total loss of engine power (non-mechanical)
- 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
- Fuel exhaustion
- 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
- Fluid, fuel › Exhaustion
- Pilot in command › In-flight planning/decision, inadequate
- Pilot in command › Refueling, not performed
Approximate · Coordinates as recorded by the NTSB; no uncertainty radius is established.
NTSB narrative
The captain/operator, the first officer and one passenger, departed on a cross-country positioning flight. The airplane contained about 300 gallons of fuel. After 3.9 hours en route, the flight was cleared for a visual approach to the destination airport. During the approach, both engines lost power about 2,000 feet mean sea level. The pilot stated the right fuel tank was empty. He estimated that 50 to 60 gallons of fuel remained in the left fuel tank. While the airplane was descending toward an area of open water, he attempted to restart the engines without success. He then lowered the landing gear, and made a right turn toward a small airstrip, located about 5 miles northwest of the destination airport. The airplane touched down in an area of soft, marsh covered, terrain. During the landing roll, the airplane nosed down and received damage to the forward, lower portion of the fuselage. An inspection of the airplane by an FAA inspector revealed the left fuel tank contained about 1 inch of fuel. The right fuel selector was positioned on the right auxiliary fuel tank. The left fuel selector was positioned between the left main, and the left auxiliary fuel tanks.
Probable cause
The pilot's inadequate in-flight planning/decision which resulted in fuel exhaustion and subsequent loss of engine power. A related factor was the soft, marshy terrain at the forced landing area.
Verbatim NTSB analysis and probable cause from the NTSB dataset
Sources
NTSB record ANC98LA055
- Event ID
- 20001211X09975
- Case number
- ANC98LA055
- 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: fcdda72bc1d79791b7a52e931aa2edfc2ea08960ab4cc5a72922834a7d5f6429; retrieved 2026-09-21T20:50:29.150Z.