ANC93LA017 · Taylorcraft BC-12D
Taylorcraft BC-12D · Accident: undershoot on approach
From Huslia Airport (HSL) to an unrecorded destination
Event
- NTSB case
- ANC93LA017
- 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
- Visual Meteorological Cond
Taylorcraft BC-12D
- Aircraft type
- Taylorcraft BC-12
- 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
- N69MA
- Operator
- Ernst, Donald E. · private individual
- Onboard fatalities
- Unknown
- Route
- From Huslia Airport (HSL)To not recorded
- 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
- Approach · VFR pattern final
- 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
- Undershoot
- 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 › Proper glidepath, not maintained
Approximate · Coordinates as recorded by the NTSB; no uncertainty radius is established.
NTSB narrative
THE PILOT EXECUTED A NORMAL TOUCH AND GO IN BRIGHT DAYLIGHT AT A SNOW COVERED AIRPORT, FOLLOWED BY THE DOWNWIND LEG DIRECTLY INTO THE BRIGHT SETTING ARTIC SUN. AT THE TIME THE AIRPLANE TURNED TO FINAL APPROACH, THE PILOT TURNED AWAY FROM THE SUN, SUNSET OCCURRED AND THE SHADOW OF CIVIL TWILIGHT PASSED ACROSS THE THRESHOLD OF THE LANDING RUNWAY. THE AIRCRAFT DESCENDED INTO THE SHADOW, REDUCING THE VISUAL CUES SUFFICEINT FOR DEPTH PERCEPTION. THE PILOT COULD NOT ACCOUNT FOR THE UNDERSHOOT BUT BELIEVED 'IT MUST HAVE BEEN A WINDSHEAR.' THE WEATHER WAS CLEAR, VISIBILITY UNLIMITED, A STEADY HEADWIND OF 8 TO 10 KNOTS, AND TEMPERATURE AT MINUS 11 DEGREES (F).
Probable cause
THE FAILURE OF THE PILOT TO MAINTAIN PROPER GLIDEPATH DUE TO LOSS OF VISUAL CUES OVER SNOW COVERED TERRAIN IN SHADOW OF SETTING SUN. FACTORS RELATING TO THE ACCIDENT WERE THE REDUCED LIGHT OF DUSK AND THE REDUCTION OF VISUAL PERCEPTION OF THE PILOT IN CIVIL TWILIGHT.
Verbatim NTSB analysis and probable cause from the NTSB dataset
Sources
NTSB record ANC93LA017
- Event ID
- 20001211X15979
- Case number
- ANC93LA017
- 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: 1c72902be87bb9fc8dac233cb63be62aeffad96d0bf85ab70d26102442c15fb3; retrieved 2026-09-21T23:04:47.408Z.