ANC93LA040 · Piper PA-22
Piper PA-22 · Accident: in flight collision with terrain/water while maneuvering
From an unrecorded airport to Dillingham Airport (DLG)
Event
- NTSB case
- ANC93LA040
- 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
- Instrument Meteorological Cond
Piper PA-22
- Aircraft type
- Piper PA-22
- 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
- N67559
- Operator
- Baumgartner, Robert G. · private individual
- Onboard fatalities
- Unknown
- Route
- From not recordedTo Dillingham Airport (DLG), Dillingham, 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 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
- Maneuvering · turn to reverse direction
- 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
- 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
- Visual flight rules (VFR) flight into instrument meteorological conditions (IMC)
- 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
- Pilot in command › Aircraft control, not maintained
- Pilot in command › VFR flight into imc, performed
Approximate · Coordinates as recorded by the NTSB; no uncertainty radius is established.
NTSB narrative
THE VISUAL FLIGHT RULES (VFR) RESTRICTED PRIVATE PILOT STATED THAT HE DEPARTED THE AIRPORT IN INSTRUMENT METEOROLOGICAL CONDITIONS WITH THE INTENT OF MAINTAINING VISUAL REFERENCE WITH THE GROUND BY RELYING ON PROMINENT GROUND FEATURES. ONCE ALOFT, HE REALIZED THAT THERE WERE NO PROMINENT GROUND REFERENCE FEATURES ALONG THE SHORELINE. THE PILOT STATED THAT HE FLEW INTO WHITEOUT CONDITIONS AND BECAME ENGROSSED IN TRYING TO FIND THE GROUND RATHER THAN FLYING THE AIRPLANE. THE PILOT FURTHER STATED THAT HE BECAME SPATIALLY DISORIENTED WHILE ATTEMPTING TO PERFORM A 180 DEGREE TURN MANEUVER AND THAT THE AIRPLANE CRASHED IN AN INVERTED ATTITUDE.
Probable cause
THE PILOT IN COMMANDS ATTEMPT TO CONDUCT A VISUAL FLIGHT DURING INSTRUMENT METEOROLOGICAL CONDITIONS AND HIS FAILURE TO MAINTAIN CONTROL OF THE AIRCRAFT DURING THE EMERGENCY 180 DEGREE TURN MANEUVER TO REVERSE DIRECTION. FACTORS IN THE ACCIDENT WERE THE SNOW AND WHITEOUT CONDITION AND THE PILOT IN COMMANDS LIMITED EXPERIENCE IN PERFORMING 180 TURNS SOLELY BY REFERENCE TO THE PLANE'S BASIC COCKPIT INSTRUMENTATION.
Verbatim NTSB analysis and probable cause from the NTSB dataset
Sources
NTSB record ANC93LA040
- Event ID
- 20001211X11898
- Case number
- ANC93LA040
- 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: 32f0b8fd6818926ed0c932b9af80f7845eb70b79155490e264632492beaf3a01; retrieved 2026-09-21T14:31:45.533Z.