Arctic Circle Air Cessna 207A accident
Cessna 207A · Accident: total loss of engine power (non-mechanical) during initial climb
From Aniak Airport (ANI) to Kalskag Airport (KLG)
Event
- NTSB case
- ANC99LA009
- 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
- N73533
- Operator
- Arctic Circle Air
- Onboard fatalities
- Unknown
- Route
- From Aniak Airport (ANI)To Kalskag Airport (KLG), KALSKAG, 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
- Initial climb
- 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 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
Approximate · Coordinates as recorded by the NTSB; no uncertainty radius is established.
NTSB narrative
The certificated commercial pilot and two passengers departed a remote airport on an air taxi flight. After takeoff, the pilot climbed the airplane to about 1,000 feet msl. The engine began to run rough. Emergency engine procedures did not remedy the roughness. The airplane began losing altitude, and the pilot selected a forced landing area in a slough. The airplane collided with trees, and received damage to the wings, fuselage, and empennage. A sample of fuel from the left reservoir tank was murky and silty, and contained a small amount of water. Laboratory analysis of the fuel sample revealed the fuel met the standards for aviation fuel. Contamination in the fuel sample consisted of silt and dust, microscopic fibers, and paint chips. After recovery, examination of the engine did not find any mechanical malfunction. The engine produced full power on a test stand.
Probable cause
A loss of engine power due to fuel contamination. A factor in the accident was unsuitable terrain for a forced landing.
Verbatim NTSB analysis and probable cause from the NTSB dataset
Sources
NTSB record ANC99LA009
- Event ID
- 20001211X11194
- Case number
- ANC99LA009
- 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: 5695ea448a5ee7a5931a91fc8655d36b85fd1df55912e74dcc1a514be18ce333; retrieved 2026-09-18T17:03:20.171Z.