Robair Cessna 172 accident
Cessna 172 · Accident: on ground/water collision with object during takeoff
From Z09 to Bethel Airport (BET)
Event
- NTSB case
- ANC93LA059
- 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 172
- Aircraft type
- Cessna 172
- 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
- N6332D
- Operator
- Robair
- Onboard fatalities
- Unknown
- Route
- From Z09To 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 · roll/run
- 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
- On ground/water collision with object
- 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 › Judgment, poor
Approximate · Coordinates as recorded by the NTSB; no uncertainty radius is established.
NTSB narrative
THE PILOT REPORTED THAT HE WAS USING ONLY THE LEFT SIDE OF THE GRAVEL RUNWAY FOR TAKEOFF BECAUSE IT '...WAS IN A LITTLE BETTER CONDITION' THAN THE RIGHT HALF OF THE RUNWAY WHICH WAS VERY WET AND SOFT FROM THE MELTING WINTER SNOW. DUE TO WET SPOTS ON THE LEFT SIDE, SOME OF THE LEFT EDGE CONE MARKERS HAD BEEN MOVED IN TOWARD THE CENTER OF THE RUNWAY, MAKING THE TAKEOFF AREA EVEN NARROWER. DURING LIFTOFF THE AIRPLANE WEATHERVANED DUE TO A CROSSWIND, AND THE LEFT HORIZONTAL STABILIZER & ELEVATOR COLLIDED WITH ONE OF THE 3-FT HIGH RUNWAY EDGE RUBBER CONE MARKERS. THE RUNWAY HAD BEEN REOPENED 4/27 AFTER HAVING BEEN CLOSED FOR 10 DAYS BECAUSE OF THE MELTING SNOW.
Probable cause
THE PILOT'S POOR JUDGEMENT IN ATTEMPTING A TAKEOFF FROM A NARROW, WET, SOFT GRAVEL RUNWAY WITH A CROSSWIND. THE RUNWAY CONDITIONS AND THE CROSSWIND WERE FACTORS IN THE ACCIDENT.
Verbatim NTSB analysis and probable cause from the NTSB dataset
Sources
NTSB record ANC93LA059
- Event ID
- 20001211X12264
- Case number
- ANC93LA059
- Dataset
- historical-pre2008
- Source SHA-256
- 89e2df6d848e7ab3b42e7d7c7a03ff403303057a26ca04c95b3ea67201c3ce74
Source notes (5)
- 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: dc5d03f4fcbc27bd0d457333ff8b7191c3cecfda4fba1d9daf27533e8a66e8a0; retrieved 2026-09-18T18:37:07.383Z.
- The NTSB's operator name is blank for N6332D; the operator shown is the name the NTSB records it doing business as.