Hageland Aviation Services Cessna 207A accident
Cessna 207A · Accident: partial loss of engine power (non-mechanical) during takeoff
From Napaskiak Airport (PKA) to Bethel Airport (BET)
Event
- NTSB case
- ANC99LA002
- 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
- Visual Meteorological Cond
Cessna 207A
- Aircraft type
- Cessna 207
- 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
- N6874M
- Operator
- Hageland Aviation Services
- Onboard fatalities
- Unknown
- Route
- From Napaskiak Airport (PKA)To 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
- 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
- Takeoff · rejected takeoff
- 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
- Partial 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 contamination; Tree(s)
- 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 › Contamination, water
- Pilot in command › Aircraft preflight, inadequate
Approximate · Coordinates as recorded by the NTSB; no uncertainty radius is established.
NTSB narrative
The certificated airline transport pilot, with one passenger, was departing for another airport about 5 miles away. During the takeoff run, the engine surged. The pilot aborted the takeoff and returned to the departure point of the runway. He said he performed an engine power check which appeared satisfactory, and continued a second takeoff. The pilot did not recheck the fuel system for contamination. Following the second takeoff, the airplane climbed to about 300 feet msl, and the engine RPM suddenly dropped to idle. Emergency procedures did not restore power. The airplane collided with trees during an off-airport landing, and received impact damage to both wing fuel tanks. The airplane came to rest inverted. The pilot said he drained every fuel sump on the airplane at the beginning of the day, and again before beginning the flight to pick up the passenger. Following retrieval of the airplane, an FAA airworthiness inspector examined the airplane. He found about 1/2 cup of water in the fuel system. One wing sump drain was partially blocked by silt. With clean fuel, the engine was started and ran at an idle. The engine later produced full power on an engine test stand.
Probable cause
The pilot's inadequate preflight inspection to remove all contaminated fuel from the fuel system. Factors in the accident were the pilot's inadequate planning/decision to continue a second takeoff following an engine surge and aborted takeoff, and unsuitable terrain for a forced landing.
Verbatim NTSB analysis and probable cause from the NTSB dataset
Sources
NTSB record ANC99LA002
- Event ID
- 20001211X11187
- Case number
- ANC99LA002
- 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: eacbfcb1004c6fee4dc8760f139ed8b93a388d2c336b7e30dcc515271f02166b; retrieved 2026-09-18T17:03:59.147Z.