ANC93FA067 · Piper PA-28-180
Piper PA-28-180 · Accident: in flight encounter with weather en route
From Fairbanks International Airport (FAI) to Merrill Field (MRI)
Event
- NTSB case
- ANC93FA067
- 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
- 4 · 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-28-180
- Aircraft type
- Piper PA-28
- 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
- N16275
- Operator
- Brewer, Matthew J. · private individual
- Onboard fatalities
- Unknown
- Route
- From Fairbanks International Airport (FAI), Fairbanks, AKTo Merrill Field (MRI), Anchorage, 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
- En route · cruise
- 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 encounter with weather
- 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, uncontrolled
- Pilot in command › Design stress limits of aircraft, exceeded
- Pilot in command › Spatial disorientation
- Pilot in command › VFR flight into imc, continued
Approximate · Coordinates as recorded by the NTSB; no uncertainty radius is established.
NTSB narrative
THE FLIGHT HAD DEPARTED FAIRBANKS ON A VFR FLIGHT PLAN WITH A DESTINATION OF ANCHORAGE. VISUAL METEOROLOGICAL CONDITIONS PREVAILED AT BOTH THE DEPARTURE POINT AND THE DESTINATION; HOWEVER, THERE WERE REPORTED AREAS OF INSTRUMENT METEOROLOGICAL CONDITIONS EN ROUTE. THE AIRPLANE CRASHED INTO TREES 11 MI NORTH OF TALKEETNA. THE LEFT OUTBOARD 4 FT OF WING AND THE LEFT STABILATOR WERE LOCATED 3/8 MI WEST OF THE MAIN WRECKAGE.
Probable cause
THE PILOT'S CONTINUED VISUAL FLIGHT INTO INSTRUMENT METEOROLOGICAL CONDITIONS AT NIGHT WHICH RESULTED IN A LOSS OF AIRPLANE CONTROL, SPATIAL DISORIENTATION, AND AN INFLIGHT BREAKUP. FACTORS WHICH CONTRIBUTED TO THE ACCIDENT WERE: THE ADVERSE WEATHER AND THE DARK NIGHT.
Verbatim NTSB analysis and probable cause from the NTSB dataset
Sources
NTSB record ANC93FA067
- Event ID
- 20001211X15791
- Case number
- ANC93FA067
- 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: local date, investigation status. Values present in the bulk record are kept.
- The date is the local date; the NTSB stores the UTC date 1992-10-12.
- API snapshot SHA-256: 14c5b74263e27f09e8a1c259d2a3ed7cd4e70696e371d443b4ea24d540c008e3; retrieved 2026-09-21T00:51:53.964Z.