ANC92LA038 · Cessna 180
Cessna 180 · Accident: loss of control in flight during an uncontrolled descent
From an unrecorded airport to Ralph Wien Memorial Airport (OTZ)
Event
- NTSB case
- ANC92LA038
- 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
Cessna 180
- Aircraft type
- Cessna 180
- 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
- N2788X
- Operator
- Sheldon, Robert J. · private individual
- Onboard fatalities
- Unknown
- Route
- From not recordedTo Ralph Wien Memorial Airport (OTZ), Kotzebue, 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
- Uncontrolled descent
- 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
- Loss of control in flight
- 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 › Flight into known adverse weather, performed
Approximate · Coordinates as recorded by the NTSB; no uncertainty radius is established.
NTSB narrative
THE AIRPLANE, ON A VISUAL FLIGHT WITH A NON-INSTRUMENT RATED PILOT AT THE CONTROLS, ENTERED FOG IMMEDIATELY AFTER BECOMING AIRBORNE. THE AIRPLANE WAS OBSERVED TO EXIT THE FOG ABOUT 30 SECONDS LATER HEADING IN THE OPPOSITE DIRECTION AT A VERY LOW ALTITUDE AND IN A SLIGHT LEFT TURN BEFORE IMPACTING THE GROUND. PERSONNEL WHO ARRIVED AT THE SCENE IMMEDIATELY AFTER THE OCCURRENCE REPORTED SEEING THE PLANE'S WINGS AND HORIZONTAL STABILIZER GLAZED OVER WITH ICE. THE PILOT REPORTEDLY SCRAPED ICE OFF OF THE PLANE'S PROPELLER AND WINGS PRIOR TO COMMENCING THE FLIGHT. THE 1815 AWOS RECORDED A PARTIAL OBSCURATION, CEILING 200 FT. OVERCAST, AND A VISIBILITY OF 2 MILES.
Probable cause
THE NON-INSTRUMENTED RATED PILOT-IN-COMMAND ATTEMPTED VISUAL FLIGHT INTO KNOWN INSTRUMENT METEOROLOGICAL CONDITIONS. FACTORS CONTRIBUTING TO THE ACCIDENT WERE THE FOG, THE ICING CONDITIONS, AND THE PILOT'S OVER CONFIDENCE IN HIS PERSONAL ABILITY.
Verbatim NTSB analysis and probable cause from the NTSB dataset
Sources
NTSB record ANC92LA038
- Event ID
- 20001211X14061
- Case number
- ANC92LA038
- 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: fb235fd57d01641e37d82b465d78d203bb3d2896a525315dcc42db903fcd5f27; retrieved 2026-09-21T15:07:10.361Z.