ANC98FA091 · Swearingen SA-26AT
F. S. Air Service Swearingen SA-26AT · Accident: in flight collision with terrain/water on approach
From Ted Stevens Anchorage International Airport (ANC) to PBV
Event
- NTSB case
- ANC98FA091
- 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
- General aviation
- 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
Swearingen SA-26AT
- Aircraft type
- Swearingen SA-26
- 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
- N501FS
- Operator
- F. S. Air Service
- Onboard fatalities
- Unknown
- Route
- From Ted Stevens Anchorage International Airport (ANC), Anchorage, AKTo PBV
- 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 · IFR initial approach
- 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
- Copilot/second pilot › Proper alignment, not obtained/maintained
- Pilot in command › Monitoring, inadequate
Approximate · Coordinates as recorded by the NTSB; no uncertainty radius is established.
NTSB narrative
The flight departed Anchorage, Alaska, and was en route to Saint George, Alaska, to pick up passengers for a return flight to Anchorage. The pilot-in-command (PIC) was seated in the right seat, and the copilot was seated in the left seat. This was the copilot's third flight in this make and model airplane, and he was not qualified as a crewman in it under 14 CFR Part 135. There was no record of when the copilot last performed a nondirectional beacon (NDB) approach. The NDB indicator in the cockpit was on the left side of the left control column, partially blocked from the view of the PIC. The minimum altitude for the segment of the approach prior to the final approach fix (FAF) was 1,700 feet. The Minimum Descent Altitude (MDA) for the final segment of the approach was 880 feet. The reported ceiling was 100 feet overcast. The Air Route Traffic Control Center radar altitude readout for the airplane revealed that the airplane descended below 600 feet prior to reaching the FAF. The radar ground track revealed the airplane on course prior to the course reversal procedure turn on the published approach. The radar ground track showed that after the course reversal, the airplane continued through the published final approach course, and turned to parallel the inbound track three miles north of course. The radar plot terminates about the location of the 550 feet high cliffs where the airplane was located. Weather at the time of the accident was reported as 100 foot overcast. This location was 5.5 miles (DME) from the airport. A review of radar tapes from the day prior to the accident, show the same airplane and PIC tracking the published course outbound and inbound, and descending below the published approach minima to below 500 feet. This flight successfully landed at the airport. An interview with the copilot from the successful flight revealed that the PIC intentionally descended to 300 feet on the approach until he acquired visual contact with the ocean, then flew to the airport to land. An aircraft flying on the published inbound final approach course at 5.5 DME is over water, approximately three miles from the nearest terrain.
Probable cause
The pilot-in-command's failure to adequately monitor the instrument approach and the co-pilot's failure to intercept and maintain the proper NDB bearing on the approach. Contributing factors were the pilot-in-command's obstructed view of the NDB indicator and his overconfidence in his personal ability, the terrain (cliffs), low ceiling, and the flight crew's disregard of the minimum descent altitude.
Verbatim NTSB analysis and probable cause from the NTSB dataset
Sources
NTSB record ANC98FA091
- Event ID
- 20001211X10441
- Case number
- ANC98FA091
- 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: 338c3cd5df299ef33a25379099f0a93a117dc2c66bce36a09c8d237609993194; retrieved 2026-09-20T22:30:53.551Z.