ANC98LA103 · Cessna 206
Cessna 206 · Accident: in flight encounter with weather en route
From Elmendorf Air Force Base (EDF) to an unrecorded destination
Event
- NTSB case
- ANC98LA103
- 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
Cessna 206
- Aircraft type
- Cessna 206
- 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
- N7370N
- Operator
- Unknown
- Onboard fatalities
- Unknown
- Route
- From Elmendorf Air Force Base (EDF), SIX MILE LAKE, AKTo not recorded
- 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
- En route · cruise
- 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
- 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 › Altitude/clearance, not maintained
- Pilot in command › Compensation for wind conditions, inadequate
Approximate · Coordinates as recorded by the NTSB; no uncertainty radius is established.
NTSB narrative
The float equipped airplane was reported by the pilot to be in cruise flight about 800 feet above the surface of a glacier. He estimated the gross weight of the airplane at 3,312 pounds. He was flying in an up-glacier direction, in a mountainous valley. The prevailing winds at the surface were reported by the pilot to be 15 knots in a down-glacier direction. The pilot stated that the airplane began to descend rapidly, and that full power did not arrest the descent. The Cessna U206G performance charts indicate a climb rate between 915 and 1,005 feet per minute given the prevailing conditions. The pilot said there were no mechanical problems with the airplane, and that he did not attempt to turn because the most favorable landing terrain was ahead of the airplane. The airplane collided with slightly rising terrain, in a wings level, nose up attitude, just as the stall warning horn activated. The airplane sustained substantial damage. There were no injuries to the four occupants.
Probable cause
The pilot's inadequate compensation for wind conditions, and inadequate clearance from mountainous terrain. Factors were the downslope winds and downdrafts.
Verbatim NTSB analysis and probable cause from the NTSB dataset
Sources
NTSB record ANC98LA103
- Event ID
- 20001211X10456
- Case number
- ANC98LA103
- 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 1998-07-19.
- API snapshot SHA-256: 4ce5bd00f39c0a3fb59fda1e6dfa2974a11ffae0fae63c6ed632bb11a83363c8; retrieved 2026-09-22T17:24:56.631Z.