ANC99LA065 · Stinson 108
Stinson 108 · Accident
From AK to an unrecorded destination
Event
- NTSB case
- ANC99LA065
- 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
- 1 · 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
Stinson 108
- Aircraft type
- Stinson 108
- 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
- N793C
- Operator
- Glenn A. Ferris · private individual
- Onboard fatalities
- Unknown
- Route
- From AKTo 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
- Unknown
- 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
- Undetermined
- 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
- Reason for occurrence undetermined
Approximate · Estimated position: the centre of Anchorage, AK, the place the record names. Not the accident site.
NTSB narrative
A commercial pilot departed a private lake in a float equipped airplane for a flight over a 12 mile wide area of water. He intended to pick up two friends staying at a cabin, whom he dropped off the day before. The airplane did not arrive at the lake, and was reported overdue. Six days later, the body of the pilot was found along the shore of the area of water the pilot intended to cross. He was wearing a flotation cushion that was carried in the airplane. The cause of death was hypothermia, and drowning. The airplane has not been found. For several months before the accident, the airplane had a recurring engine roughness, backfiring, and several engine fires during start-up. During an annual inspection, one month before the accident, a mechanic installed a six point engine primer system. During flights within two days of the accident, passengers who flew in the airplane, commented that the engine would backfire when the throttle was reduced. One day before the accident, prior to flying the two friends to the cabin, the pilot purchased 20 gallons of automotive fuel, and poured it into the right wing fuel tank. During taxi for departure, the engine quit, and the pilot had difficulty restarting the engine. Automotive fuel is not recommended, or approved, for the engine.
Probable cause
Undetermined.
Verbatim NTSB analysis and probable cause from the NTSB dataset
Sources
NTSB record ANC99LA065
- Event ID
- 20001212X18678
- Case number
- ANC99LA065
- 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: 8eb8dc04f1df149b3a3f28766e8585c70cbacfa381d162fa9021d75557727c5c; retrieved 2026-09-20T22:06:24.134Z.